ECOWAS Volunteers Programme Regional Coordination Council Meets in Abuja

 

The 5^th Meeting of the Regional Coordination Council (RCC) of the ECOWAS Volunteers Programme (EVP) will hold in Abuja, Nigeria from the 23^rd to the 24^th of November 2016.

Through the EVP, the ECOWAS Commission aims to facilitate the engagement and participation of its young citizens in peace and development initiatives through volunteerism.

The objectives of the Abuja meeting among others are to:

• sensitize the Heads of the National Offices to the achievements and contributions of the pilot phase of the Programme;
• validate the amendments proposed to be made to the EVP Manual of Management and Administrative Procedures by the last meeting of the Regional Coordinating Council held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso;
• adopt a strategy for the perennial phase of the Programme while reviewing and adopting the Programme’s 2017 budget;
• Review and adopt the Regional Office’s work plan for 2017 as well as the 2017 work plans of the National Offices in Guinea and Sierra Leone;

• present a status report on the implementation of the Programme (Programme and Financial Report).

On March 26, 2010, the ECOWAS Commission officially launched the PVC in Monrovia, Liberia. One hundred (100) volunteers have since been deployed in the three post-conflict West African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. However, the fourth country in the pilot phase of the Programme, Guinea Bissau, is yet to receive volunteers.

In the implementation of the mandate of the EVP, the Programme’s Regional Office, the ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre (EYSDC), reports to the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC), composed of representatives of all relevant departments within the ECOWAS Commission and chaired by the ECOWAS Commissioner for Social Affairs and Gender.

Similarly, for effective coordination, the Director of the EYSDC assumes the role of the Deputy Chairman of the Council and the Head of the Regional Office of the Programme. The RCC is the coordinating body for the management policy and sets the guidelines and orientations of the Programme.

During the meeting, the Regional Office, the Executive Body of the Regional Coordination Council responsible for the operational implementation of the ECOWAS Volunteers Programme, will submit a report on the state of implementation of the programme and propose administrative actions requiring the endorsement of the RCC.

The PVC was established by the ECOWAS Commission in accordance with its Vision 2020 and in collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV), its financial and technical partners respectively.

The PVC contributes to regional development and peace by providing technical assistance through volunteers, with youthful dynamism and innovation, in support of the efforts of Member States in their priority areas of development.