Abuja, 20th September 2019. The Vice President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Head of the Steering Committee of the ECOWAS Post 2020 Vision, Madam Finda Koroma reiterated the Commission’s commitment to developing a vision for ECOWAS, which will promote the economic and social development of its Members States and foster intra-regional integration.

In a meeting of the Steering Committee, which held on 20th September 2019 in Abuja, Nigeria, representatives from ECOWAS Institutions, the Commission’s Directorate of Strategic Planning, Monitoring and Evolution and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) deliberated on the ECOWAS Post 2020 Vision and the road map for its development.

In her remarks during the meeting, the Vice President stated that, the Roadmap outlines a 5 phase approach for the development of the ECOWAS Post 2020 Vision, which are; preparatory stage, analysis and assessment, formulating and drafting, review and validation, and endorsement and adoption.

“The Commission commenced the implementation of the second phase of the roadmap early this year, but progress has been hampered by various challenges, putting us behind schedule on the implementation timeline. However we are fully committed to delivering the ECOWAS Post 2020 Vision before the end of 2020 with the support of UNECA”, she said.

Leading the UNECA team during the meeting, Bakary Dosso stated that UNECA will provide technical support to the ECOWAS Commission towards the development of its Post 2020 Vision and conduct a capacity assessment of the Directorate of Strategic Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and provide policy recommendations towards strengthening the Directorate.

UNECA will collaborate with ECOWAS to strengthen result based Planning, Monitoring and Evolution at the organizational level and institutional level, ensure coherence and synergy among ECOWAS institutions and Directorates and develop a 3-5 year capacity development plan for the Directorate of Strategic Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation.

The Steering Committee also validated the draft guidelines and data collection tools for national stakeholder’s consultations.