ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Canadian government's support towards the institutional capacity building of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to promote peace, security, and stability in the West Africa sub-region through the CFA's West African Peace and Security Initiative (PSI). It flows in to an analysis of the Canadian government's financial, technical, and training support to strengthen the peace and security capacity of ECOWAS through the PSI. The chapter portrays the belief that Africa's security is interlinked with global security and for that matter Canada has an obligation to assist ECOWAS to build its peace and security capacity. ECOWAS's policy shift to engage in peace and security promotion as a requirement for economic integration started when the Pan-West African organisation adopted a Protocol on Non-Aggression (PNA) in 1978. The chapter concludes with a Non-Imperial Internationalist Approach as an alternative theoretical framework to understand Canada's foreign policy toward the African Union and ECOWAS.
