Abuja 9^th May 2018. Experts and officials have started examining pertinent planning issues having to do with the 13^th Meeting of the Strategic Planning Coordinating Committee (SPCC) of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) began with a workshop in Abuja, Nigeria on the 9^th of May 2018.

Among others, the meeting is meant to critically review and appraise relevant issues in the on-going ECOWAS Community Strategic Framework (CSF) and chart the strategic direction of ECOWAS within the next decade.

Welcoming participants to the opening Workshop which is holding in conjunction with the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Head, Planning, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation unit of the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre (EGDC) Mr. Awudu Ahmed Gumah stated that the endevour is an important course of action given that the next vision of the ECOWAS planning process needs a critical examination.

The Workshop facilitator Mrs. Ulrike Breitschuh stressed that the exercise is meant to aggregate from the participants, Ideas that can lead to a substantial improvement in the CSF processes.

Supported by the Head, Organizational Development Unit of GIZ, Mr. Frank-Emery Mongbe, Breitschuh gave an overview of the agenda of the SPCC meeting for which the Workshop is a precursor.

During the four-Day meeting, Participants will be examining the current ECOWAS vision, the new vision’s draft proposal, presentations of selected vision development processes, the roadmap of vision development and strategic planning as well as stakeholders’ analyses of participation in vision and strategic planning process.

At the brainstorming sessions, answers will also be sought to the questions of what ECOWAS means to people, how the organization is perceived by the public and stakeholders as well as where it has been most successful over the years. This is in addition to the review the implementation arrangements for the CSF.

The CSF was adopted by the ECOWAS Council of Ministers in December 2015. All ECOWAS Institutions and Agencies are expected to draw their programmes from the framework which should ensure a congruence of purpose and consistency in programmes across board.