A critique of externally driven mechanisms for attracting foreign investment in the west Africa.

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.