The ECOWAS Commission has not revealed yet the results of a study meant to examine implications of Moroccan membership. A situation the United Nations proposed to work on by hosting an expert meeting in Benin. The United Nations attaches special interest to Morocco's bid to join the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The Sub-Regional Office for West Africa of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) held an expert meeting on the 25th and the 26th of June in Cotonou to discuss implications related to the Moroccan membership. Tunisia's request and the readmission of Mauritania, which left the regional organization in 2000, were also studied during the meeting held in Benin's economic capital. For two days, attendees at the meeting were asked to identify and discuss the major challenges ECOWAS might face, when admitting new members. Lomé's summit in July Reportedly, by the end of the meeting experts are expected to draft a series of recommendations that could be submitted to the ECOWAS Commission. The body, chaired by Ivorian politician Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, urged research centers in the region in February to conduct surveys, studying the implications the Moroccan bid can have. Four months after Brou's call, nothing has been submitted to the ECOWAS Commission. While Morocco is awaiting a final answer from the regional economic organization, Nigerian politicians stick to their guns, refusing the Kingdom's bid. In April and during an ECOWAS Extraordinary summit held in the Togolese capital Lomé, Morocco's bid to join the regional economic union officially submitted in March 2017, has not been reviewed, said the Community in a statement. For the record, on the 16th of December in Abuja, ECOWAS member states decided in a communiqué that «with regard to Morocco's full membership of ECOWAS (…) the Summit set up a committee comprising the Presidents of Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria, to adopt the terms of reference and supervise a detailed study of the implications thereof».
