The Heads of State and Government noted the impossibility of launching the new regional currency by the end of the year.

There were only four months left to launch the single currency of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as regularly mentioned in the texts since 2015. A very short time while it still remained to create the federal central bank, to specify the exchange regime of the new currency, not to mention the necessary administrative and computer procedures related to a change of currency and the manufacture of coins and notes...

Meeting on 7 September in Niamey, the Heads of State and Government of the region therefore took note of the inevitable postponement of the measure. They thus decided to "postpone, at a later date, the launch of the single currency" and evoked the elaboration of a "new roadmap", without for the moment determining the new timetable.

The hatchet with the buried Umoa?

If the first quarter of 2020 was marked by the appearance of tensions between countries of the franc zone and WAMZ, and in particular by a deaf rivalry between Abuja and Abidjan, it is the non-compliance with the convergence criteria and the economic impact of Covid-19 that are put forward to justify this postponement.

The meeting, which also saw speeches by Ivorian President Alassane Dramane Ouattara - for Umoa - and the Sierra Leonean Minister of Foreign Affairs - on the WAMZ side - also "took note of the important transformations carried out in the Umoa monetary zone", but specifies that this reform "is part of the actions to be carried out to transform the FCFA, as well as the other currencies, into Eco, in accordance with the revised ECOWAS roadmap".

If no indication is given for the establishment of this future currency, which will be done in a "gradual" way, as already stipulated in previous texts, it should be noted that ECOWAS exempts its members from compliance with the macroeconomic convergence criteria in 2020.