Economic Community of West African States

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), an active regional organization, is made up of:


 * 1) Benin
 * 2) Burkina Faso
 * 3) Cape Verde
 * 4) Cote d'Ivoire
 * 5) Gambia
 * 6) Ghana
 * 7) Guinea
 * 8) Guinea Bissau
 * 9) Liberia
 * 10) Mali
 * 11) Niger
 * 12) Nigeria
 * 13) Senegal
 * 14) Sierra Leone
 * 15) Togo

Most were either French or British colonies, so the common languages of the region are French and English, with some Portuguese and Arabic. There are, of course, large numbers of indigenous languages.

Peace operations
These states also comprise the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) is a non-standing peace operations force that has operated in civil war in Sierra Leone and is a model for future needs.