Abstract

The Economic Community of West African States was established in 1975 with the view to fast tracking economic development in the West African sub-region. However, thirty-three years after, ECOWAS is only struggling to rid itself of those obstacles that have prevented it from achieving its goal. Chief among those obstacles are illiteracy, wars, poor health care delivery, gender inequality and poverty. A number of steps have been taken in the past to see to it that the main objective of ECOWAS is achieved; these steps have not brought the expected result; ECOWAS therefore remains with its challenges. However, it is here suggested that if ECOWAS would employ a strategy that will bring its citizens to learn about themselves and about the potentials of their community, then, it will succeed in achieving its objective of functional integration. A process of learning such as this, is known as “international education”. In this specific sense, promotion of functional learning of French and English languages, development of traditional medicine, continuous research into indigenous and modern strategies of conflict resolution, promotion of gender equality and reduction of poverty through new cross border types of learning  are activities identified as harbinger of opportunities that will lead ECOWAS citizens to learn more about themselves and eventually act in a way that will become beneficial to the generality of the members of this community. This is international education and the benefit thereof is the eventual functional integration of West African countries.

Key words: ECOWAS, education, international education, poverty, development.