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The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières SA ("Regional Securities Exchange SA") or BRVM, is a regional stock exchange serving the following West African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo.

The exchange is located in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Market offices are maintained in each country. BRVM is a private corporation with 2,904,300,000 CFA francs in capital.

The mission of the BRVM is to:

• Organize the securities market;
• Disseminate market information;
• Promote the market.

Time line Market integration by the BRVM is a political, institutional and technical success. The Bourse Régionale and Dépositaire Central/Banque de Règlement (DC/BR) were established in several phases:

• November 14, 1973: Treaty signed establishing the West African Monetary Union (WAMU) which created a financial market organized into sub-regions.


• December 17, 1993: WAMU Council of Ministers decides to create a Regional Financial Market and mandates the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) to conduct the project.


• December 18, 1996: Various preliminary activities are conducted resulting in the formation in Cotonou of Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières S.A. (BRVM) and Dépositaire Central/Banque de Règlement S.A. (DC/BR), thus marking the end of the BCEAO mandate and the takeover of project management by its own agencies.


• November 20, 1997: Union's Council of Ministers establishes the Regional Council for Public Saving and Financial Markets.


• September 16, 1998: BRVM and DC/BR begin operations.

In January 2000, Niger's newly elected government inherited serious financial and economic problems including a virtually empty treasury, past-due salaries (11 months of unpaid salaries) and scholarship payments, increased debt, reduced revenue performance, and lower public investment. In December 2000, Niger qualified for enhanced debt relief under the International Monetary Fund program for Highly Indebted Poor Countries and concluded an agreement with the Fund on a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF).

In addition to changes in the budgetary process and public finances, the new government has pursued economic restructuring towards the IMF promoted privatization model. This has included the privatization of water distribution and telecommunications and the removal of price protections for petroleum products, allowing prices to be set by world market prices. Further privatizations of public enterprises are in the works.

In its effort to comply with the IMF's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility plan, the government is also taking action to reduce corruption and, as the result of a participatory process encompassing civil society, has devised a Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan that focuses on improving health, primary education, rural infrastructure, and judicial restructuring.

A long-planned privatization of the Nigerien power company, NIGELEC, failed in 2001 and again in 2003 due to a lack of buyers. SONITEL, the nation's telephone operator which was separated from the post office and privatized in 2001, was renationalized in 2009. Critics have argued that the obligations to creditor institutions and governments have locked Niger into a process of trade liberalization that is harmful to small farmers and in particular, rural women.

Niger is a developing country, and is consistently one of the lowest-ranked in the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI); it was ranked last at 188th for 2014. Much of the non-desert portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the more fertile south, and the export of raw materials, especially uranium ore. Niger faces serious challenges to development due to its landlocked position, desert terrain, inefficient agriculture, high fertility rates, and resulting overpopulation without birth control, poor education, and poverty of its people, lack of infrastructure, poor health care, and environmental degradation.

Nigerien society reflects a diversity drawn from the long independent histories of its several ethnic groups and regions and their relatively short period living in a single state. Historically, what is now Niger has been on the fringes of several large states. Since independence, Nigeriens have lived under five constitutions and three periods of military rule. Following a military coup in 2010, Niger has become a democratic, multi-party state. A majority live in rural areas and have little access to advanced education.

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The West African CFA franc (French: franc CFA;Portuguese: franco CFA or simply franc, ISO 4217 code: XOF) is the currency of eight independent states in West Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. These eight countries have a combined population of 105.7 million people (as of 2014), and a combined GDP of US$78.4 billion (as of 2012).

The acronym CFA stands for Communauté Financière d'Afrique ("Financial Community of Africa") or Communauté Financière Africaine ("African Financial Community"). The currency is issued by the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, "Central Bank of the West African States"), located in Dakar, Senegal, for the members of the UEMOA (Union Économique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine, "West African Economic and Monetary Union"). The franc is nominally subdivided into 100 centimes but no centime denominations have been issued.

The Central African CFA franc is of equal value to the West African CFA franc, and is in circulation in several central African states. They are both the CFA franc.