A regional group of 15 countries, founded in 1975 with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos. Commission of the Economic Community of West African States. In 1976 Cape Verde joined ECOWAS, and in December 2000 Mauritania withdrew, having announced its intention to do so in December 1999. ECOWAS was founded to achieve "collective self-sufficiency" for the member States by means of economic and monetary union creating a single large trading bloc. Slow progress towards this aim meant that the treaty was revised by the Revised Treaty, signed in Cotonou, Benin, on 24 July, 1993, towards a looser collaboration. Its mission is to promote economic integration in "all fields of economic activity, particularly industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial questions, social and cultural matters".