Accra - Ghana — Ministers responsible for telecommunications, information and communication technology in ECOWAS Member States on Saturday, 31st July 2010 approved a $100 million regional e-governance project that will enhance the seamless exchange of information among officials of the ECOWAS Commission, institutions of the Community and national focal points for ECOWAS.
The ECOWAS Wide Area Network (ECOWAN) is an e-governance platform that will provide intra-community broadband interconnectivity that will help accelerate regional integration, particularly in the areas of trade, customs administration, tourism, monetary cooperation, agriculture and contribute to the implementation of the regional sectoral data base as well as an improved internet network for West African citizens. In a resolution at the end of their one day meeting, the ministers also adopted the concept for the implementation of ECOWAN through a dedicated agency which will operate under a pubic private partnership arrangement. The network will be managed and operated by a proposed ECOWAS Regional Information Technology Services Agency (RITSA). ECOWAN will operate under a three-tier structure with a steering committee at the apex and comprising ministers of ICT in member states, who will approve strategies and the project financing options.
There will also be a Project Implementation Committee comprising ICT experts from Member States and stakeholders whose mandate will end after the establishment of RITSA and a Project Implementation Unit that will manage the project. In a message to the opening, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho said the ECOWAN project was being driven by the desire to provide the missing elements of Intelcom 2, a regional programme to improve telecommunications in the region that was affected by the liberalization of telecom services in the region. Intelcom 1 which was implemented by the Commission enabled direct telephone links between member states and the follow up Intelcom 2 was supposed to provide additional telecom services. Ambassador Gheho, who was represented by the Director of the Community Computer Centre, Dr Monisoye Afolabi said that ECOWAN would launch the region into the information superhighway and provide fibre optic links for Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone, four member states without a trunk network.
In another speech, Ghana's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and NEPAD, Honorable Muhammed Mumuni lauded ECOWAN for its potential to contribute to deepening regional integration, saying that for West Africa, integration has become imperative if the region could overcome the challenges of development and insertion into a globalizing world. He said that the applications of ECOWAN 'covers the very foundation of our integration by focusing on the core areas of regional integration such as transport, health, environment, natural resources, the economy and human resources.'
