The use of local currencies is essential to build a multipolar world, Vice President of the BRICS Alliance NPO, Ahoua Don Mello, told Sputnik Africa.
"[Countries] must equip themselves with means that can allow them to trade in local currency [without the usage of the dollar], because all these [Western] financial institutions have become sticks in the hands of the West. Since the reserves are made in dollars or in euros, these are their conditions that are imposed to be able to do international trade," he noted.
Mello added that in order to build a multipolar world, countries have to "use the local currency payment mechanism."
Speaking about a possible common currency within the Alliance of Sahel States, he noted that "these countries would have no reason not to move towards their own monetary institution."
Strengthening Ties With African Countries
Mello provided Sputnik Africa with insights on the Alliances projects in Africa.
"[It's been] about two years, [that] we've been working with the Central African Republic, and for the past year, we've been working a lot with Burkina Faso. Today, we proceed with Equatorial Guinea and also with Niger," he noted.
A representative of the BRICS Alliance has been appointed in Burkina Faso, Mello added. His mission will be to identify joint projects and find partners to implement them. As for Niger, several files are being examined to find ways to ensure trade after it left ECOWAS and lost access to maritime routes, he said.
Exit of Three ECOWAS Countries to 'Create New Page of Pan-Africanism'
At the time of its creation, ECOWAS was an "instrument of progress within the framework of the construction of Pan-Africanism," Mello told Sputnik Africa.
"This instrument has gradually become a stick. First, it worked on crutches, Western crutches, since a good part of the financing came from the West. And now it has become a stick against all the states which want to free themselves," he lamented.
The sovereign countries then decided to free themselves from these "shackles," said the official.
According to him, the new model of pan-Africanism "will have the essential task of proposing a new plan for the integration of African states."
"The BRICS is there to open up this opportunity to a multipolar world which is under construction," Mello added.