N'djamena — Chad hugely counts on the support of the Economic Commission for Africa on its road to development. This message came straight from the country's Minister of the Economy, planning and International Cooperation, Ms Mariam Mahamat Nour, during a discussion she had with the Director for the Sub Regional Office for Central Africa of the ECA, Mr Emile Ahohe, on the sidelines of a forum on Governance in post-conflict countries in Central Africa co-organised in N'Djamena from 9 to 10 December 2013 by the Commission and the Government of Chad.
The two personalities used the occasion to discuss ECA's recent organisational reform anchored on Africa's transformative agenda and to explore avenues of cooperation between the Commission and the sahelian state. They particularly examined questions on governance in Africa, notably the issue of the illicit financial outflows being faced by the continent - an issue which the Commission is currently tackling through its High Level Panel led by former South African President, Mr Thabo Mbeki. The Chadian Minister said her country's leadership would be quite keen on appropriating the recommendations of the Panel once it concludes its continent-wide fact-finding mission. She lauded ECA's initiative of bringing experts to N'Djamena to brainstorm on ways and means of preventing and wiping out corruption in post initiative countries at the just ended Forum on Governance.
At the end of that forum, the experts made several recommendations that would be useful to states of the sub region that have recently emerged from conflict in preventing and combating corruption. Salient on the list is the need for States to institute the practice of or capitalise on the declaration of assets by senior state officials, to carryout anti-corruption awareness campaigns, to carryout effective state audits accompanied by dissuasive sanctions, to protect key actors in the fight against corruption and reduce their vulnerability and to introduce courses on integrity into their primary school curriculum. The experts also insisted on making the fight against corruption an integral part of post-conflict accords.
