A critique of externally driven mechanisms for attracting foreign investment in the west Africa.
Abstract:Abstract
Creating an environment conducive to investment and enacting business-friendly
legal and administrative frameworks are top priority issues in the ECOWAS region.
Several regional, continental and international initiatives have been launched to
reposition the global south to attract and retain foreign direct investment (FDI).
This exerts pressure on host governments to provide a climate hospitable to foreign
corporations. More than half of the active population in the ECOWAS region are
engaged in the informal economic sector but the legal reforms to attract investments
tend not to have ‘informal economic actors’ at its core. The United Nations
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 has twelve targets among which is the
enforcement of non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development.
This paper acknowledges the new governance theory that the State needs to engage
other actors to leverage its capacities and recognizes the shift from Official
Development Assistance to Foreign Direct Investment. It utilizes the critical legal
theory in critiquing the implementation of the OECD Policy Framework for Investment
and the World Bank Group’s Ease of Doing Business in West Africa. It concludes
that social equity and sustainable development are realizable only when domestic
entrepreneurs are situated at the core of investment legal frameworks.
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