Development index for West African countries and the need for ECOWAS intervention

Abstract

The World Bank and United Nations do normally use the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to measure the progress of nations. The usual criticism of this parameter is that GDP is too narrow and limited to absolutely measure the development of any country. In this paper, the author attempts to measure the development index for West African countries over a period of 40 years (i.e. 1960 – 2000) using a composite value of 13 socioeconomic development indicators including demographic, health, education, employment, life expectancy data as well as the GDP. Using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) statistics, the author computes the principal factors, the factor scores, eigen values and communalities of the data obtained per year. The resultant development index for each of the years were tabulated and graphically presented for clarity purposes. The analysis reveals that although the countries varied in their developmental path over the years, most nations rose and fell at different times. ANOVA showed that there is no significant change in the development of the countries prior to the establishment of ECOWAS (1960-1975) and after ECOWAS has been established (1975-2000). Its recommendations include good governance and ECOWAS intervention for improving the Member States since more nations recorded improved development index under better administrations.