Lome - Togo — Stakeholders have agreed a three-year capacity building plan for the effective participation of National Units and Community institutions in the ECOWAS mechanism for the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of regional integration programmes.
The ECOWAS M&E tool is a centralized system for collecting, processing and analyzing information on regional integration activities undertaken by stakeholders in order to gauge effectiveness and promote the judicious use of resources provided by ECOWAS and donors in support of the regional integration project. The agreement on the capacity building plan is one of the outcomes of a three- day meeting of ECOWAS Commission, National Units and Community institutions' officials, which ended in Lome, Togo on Friday 2nd September 2011.
The plan is anchored on 11 priority actions to be implemented jointly by the three parties, with the ECOWAS Commission expected to undertake sensitization for relevant officials on the M&E, establish an operational framework for the review of programmes and develop a training programme for relevant officials. The Commission is also expected to provide appropriate IT (Information and Technology) support to enable National Units and Community institutions to effectively participate and assume ownership of the M&E process. The plan also envisages the development of a directory of regional integration initiatives of programmes being implemented or planned by ECOWAS Member States as well as other activities for the orientation of National Units' officials with responsibility for ECOWAS affairs. The ECOWAS M&E system seeks to develop synergy among stakeholders in the implementation of priority activities encapsulated in the regional strategic plan and inspired by the ECOWAS Vision 2020 project.
Based on the Community's fundamental principles and an analysis of the prevailing regional environment, the strategic plan has identified six priority areas for the region between 2011 and 2015, focusing on peace, security and good governance, cooperation and development, competition and fairness, economic and monetary integration, institutional capacity building and international prospects. The priority activities are expected to steer the region towards the achievement of the objectives enshrined in the Vision 2020 document on the promotion of good governance, competitive business environment, support for development and regional cooperation as well as strengthening economic and monetary integration, institutional capacities and the mechanism for integrating the region into the global economy.
Speaking at the meeting on Thursday, the ECOWAS Commission Vice-President Mr. Jean de Dieu Somda extolled the M&E as a tool for promoting efficiency in the use of resources and personnel, saying that it would improve the capacity of management to undertake an objective assessment of the implementation of community projects and the efficiency of personnel.
Togo's Minister of Economy and Finance, Mr. Adjo Ayassor, who opened the meeting, acknowledged the importance of M&E in improving resource management and governance. The meeting attended by officials of National Units from ministries responsible for ECOWAS affairs in Member States and institutions of the community had the support of GIZ, the German development agency
