Abuja — The Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Jean de Dieu Somda, has challenged directors and programme managers at the Commission and institutions of the Community institutions to utilize the draft Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Manual which became operational on 1st December 2011 at the Commission as a tool for the effective implementation of regional integration programmes and activities.
Opening a three-day retreat of Focal Points of Directorates and Services on 2011 performance Report of the Commission on Monday 12th December 2011 in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, the vice-president said the M&E tool would enable the Commission, Community institutions and Member States to evaluate the performance of integration programmes and activities against set targets.
Speaking on behalf of the President of the Commission His Excellency James Victor Gbeho, Mr. Somda urged the focal persons and programme managers to bring a new vision to business using M&E concept to ensure that community citizens derived maximum benefits from the integration programmes. The M&E system for all ECOWAS institutions is a flexible mechanism capable of harmonizing the different systems internal to each ECOWAS Department, institutions and structures. It is designed to ensure optimal centralization of data collection procedure at the different level thereby providing a better indicator of the overall progress recorded in the regional integration process.
Vice-President Somda thanked development partners especially the German International Cooperation Agency and its US counterpart the USAID, for supporting the development of the ECOWAS M&E system and called for sustained collaboration towards the realization of the Commission's overarching goal of people-centred integration. In his remarks, the Head of the M& E Unit at the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Akou Adjogou, who outlined the retreat's terms of reference, urged participants to make quality input to enrich and facilitate the implementation the framework of the ECOWAS Commission Strategic Plan (ECSP) 2011-2015. The meeting which will work in plenary and group sessions, with presentations from resource persons, is charged with finalizing the 2011 performance data for the Commission's directorates and services, as well as work on the 2012 work programme and budget of each directorate and service.
The mission of the ECSP is to create a Commission that is organized and resourced to facilitate a globally competitive region which enjoys high living standards through full integration, good governance, security, as well as political and economic stability. ECOWAS, now in its 37th year of existence, was formed in 1975 to facilitate regional economic integration. In 2007 in response to global trends and integration challenges, the 15-nation Organization with a combined population estimated at 300 million people, transformed from an Executive Secretariat to a Commission with a New Vision 2020 for a Community of Citizens from a Community of States.
