Abstract
The African Union is the largest Pan-African organization that is saddled with the task of uniting the African continent through economic integration in order to create self reliance among its citizens. However, the Union has faced a number of challenges with regards to destructive civil wars that have riddled the continent since the dawn of independence, especially immediately after the cold war of the 1990s. The African Union established a commission for Reconciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, but due to certain structural clauses in its charter, the commission was limited in its role. So, as the watch dog of the African nation, the Union established Regional Economic Communities (RECs), one of which is the Economic Community of West African States, and mandated them to find the means of resolving conflicts within their regions. This is based on the understanding that the RECs understand their terrains better than external parties. ECOWAS became the first REC to launch a forced intervention through its military arm, the ECOMOG, first in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and subsequently in the rest of the region. The organization faced a number of challenges while executing its mandate. These include the lack of unity among the intervening forces and the lack of funding to provide logistics needed to execute its missions successfully. These notwithstanding, the ECOWAS forces received reinforcements from the United Nations and the British army under the Palliser program, which helped to calm the situations in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the rest of the region. Subsequently, fruitful negotiations were initiated and peace accords were signed by the warring parties to end the conflicts. Although there is relative peace in the ECOWAS region today, this study was carried out in order to find means of attaining lasting and sustainable peace and stability so that meaningful developmental activities can take place in the region.