The West African area includes 18 countries, covers 7.9 million km² and had a population of almost 315 million in 2007. The region has been shaped by its long history and has been influenced in turn by the large pre-colonial kingdoms and empires, the slave trade, colonisation and independence. Its great geographical diversity is due to varied ecological and climatic conditions, from the Saharan north to the equatorial south.With a GDP estimated at 225 billion US dollars, it remains one of the poorest regions in the world: 13 of its 18 countries rank among the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

In this report, West Africa includes the entire ECOWAS zone (15 countries), to which Cameroon, Chad and Mauritania have been added, given their historic, demographic and cultural links. This area covers 7.9 million km², which is 1.8 times the size of the European Union or equivalent to 80% of the surface area of the United States or China.The average population density (40 inhabitants/km²) is low, even though 95% of the population lives in 50% of the region. From the edges of the Sahara desert to the forests of Guinea, the Sahel and the Sudanian zone, a succession of longitudinal bands have various common environmental characteristics, resulting in agro-ecological complementarities on which historical trade is based. The West African population has partly been structured around this geographical framework.

Resources have been examined independently based on the three pillars of sustainable development, which are: i) natural capital, ii) social, cultural and human capital and iii) economic capital. The main findings drawn from this analysis are set out in a summary further on.This approach however does not provide the full understanding of the challenges that are cross-cutting and linked to resources management as a whole.The analysis of resources together with the interviews with six distinguishedWestAfricans from the region reveals seven broad challenges.

West Africa's abundant and diverse resources are often shared among several countries. Carrying out an analysis of these resources requires going beyond the national level to the regional level. The approach of this report has also enabled sectors other than the economy to be explored such as natural resources as well as human and cultural capital. These resources have been studied indepth while capitalising on the Sahel and West Africa Club’s work and other sources of information on the region.

The following pages are extracts from a series of interviews with six wellknown people from the region: José Brito (Cape Verde), Ayoko Mensah (France/Togo), Ken Ofori-Atta (Ghana), Doumbo Ogobara (Mali),AminataTraoré (Mali) and Lionel Zinsou (France/Benin). The extracts taken from the interviews, carried out by a team of journalists between June and September 2008 - hence before the global financial crisisdemonstrate a wide-range of positions due to the interviewees’ diverse backgrounds and experience. They have all lived outside their own countries, whether in the United States, Europe or another African country. Given this multicultural experience and their responsibilities, they are qualified to share their ideas on the challenges the region faces today and, more generally, on the future ofWest African societies.

The six people interviewed for this report have expressed diverse opinions on the different challenges facing the region. This diversity is stimulating. It is firstly the reflection of each person’s opinion resulting from their personal background and their present and past positions.Yet most of them have expressed two convictions that are confirmed by the analysis developed in the report.The first is that public action should take into account the diversity of actors and work at various levels. The second is that the region provides a suitable framework for action in order to address certain challenges together.