Dakar — The Intergovernmental Committee of Experts for West Africa meeting was held from 25 to 26 February 2016 in Dakar, under chairmanship of His Excellency Mr. Birima Mangara, Minister designate a the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Planning in charge of Budget and in the presence of the Director of the ECA Sub-Regional Office for West Africa, Mr. Dimitri Sanga.

In his speech, Mr. Birima paid "well-deserved homage to ECA for its enormous contribution to the structural transformation of West African economies." In the same manner, he indicated that "the government of Senegal appreciates the true worth of the initiative taken by ECA to organise in Dakar for the second consecutive year, the statutory meeting of its Sub-Regional Office for West Africa".

Addressing the emerging process in which each West African state is involved in, Mr. Birima affirmed that "the country profiles constitute an appropriate response, since they offer efficient tools to decision-makers in the process of identification and implementation of economic and social strategies capable of achieving structural transformation of our economies".

As an alternative source of high quality data, he said "the country profiles constitute a high performing tool for decision-making which also facilitates the sharing of better practices".

He also "saluted the ECA for the willingness to build up the experts on the usefulness of country profiles, particularly in sharing these products with other institutions". He "encouraged all the experts to fully collaborate henceforth with the Sub-Regional Office for West Africa in order to overcome the challenges relating of the production of quality data which is urgent to the good implementation of economic and social policies for the people".

As regards the outgoing president of the ICE, Mr. Pierre N'Diaye, he expressed with assurance that it was "a promising document on the implementation of the recommendations made to the ECA".

According to Mr. N'Diaye "the four recommendations made to the ECA were translated into action. Appreciable efforts were made by the Office as testified by the report of activities. Thus a request made by the Office to detail in its annual report the types of support solicited by member States and sub-regional organisations were taken into account as support for capacity-building of statistics of member States".

The Director of the ECA Sub-Reginal Office for West Africa Mr. Dimitri Sanga in his welcome address expressed once again on behalf of the Executive Secretary General of ECA Mr. Carlos Lopes, "the gratitude of ECA to His Excellency Mr. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal for his relenting efforts towards the economic and social development of our region and the whole of Africa".

Justifying the choice of the theme for the 19th ICE for West Africa, Mr. Sanga affirmed that "he was it depending on the all the reports to be published on the progress of countries in the sub-region and beyond our continent during the current period". According to Mr. Sanga "in addition to being a knowledge product, the ECA country profiles fall within the process of dialogue on cooperation policies and capacity-building in the areas of statistics and planning". Mr. Sanga further said that the final objective "was to obtain a knowledge product shared, showing real value added for countries of our sub-region, constituting a major contribution in the structural transformation of our economies".

The 19th session of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts for West Africa also debated on and adopted several reports. These were: (i) Report on the implementation of the Programme of Work of the ECA Office for West Africa for 2015 and outlook for 2016, (ii) Report on the socio-economic profiles for West African countries (iii) Report on the implementation of regional and international agendas: MDGs and SDGs (iv) Report on the theme: "Mobilizing more resources to finance development: need to implement the Africa Mining Vision".

The experts also listened to some presentations namely: (i) Report on the ECA continental initiatives: African Social Development Index (ASDI): preliminary results for West Africa, (ii) Report on ECA continental initiatives: ECA Capacity development strategy tool for the transformation of Africa (iii) ECOWAS presentation on the theme "Financing regional development projects in the ECOWAS space" and (iv) The experience of Senegal on the transition from MDGs to SDGs.

The experts at the end made strong, pertinent and strategic recommendations to member States, ECA and ECOWAS, the implementation of which will no doubt give new dynamism to the structural transformation of economies in the sub-region.

To ECA (i) conduct an analysis on sources of growth in ECOWAS countries in order to identify the factors and strategies to promote robust, sustainable, inclusive growth and employment creation in the sub-region; (ii) coordinate and share efforts to collect, process and produce data as well as the production of studies within the sub-region in order to reduce the burden of work on national structures involved with the production of statistics and to avoid duplication.

To member States (i) continue to support ECA in its efforts towards the development of national statistics systems and support sub-regional development initiatives; (ii) strengthen technical collaboration with ECA as well as the domestication of country profiles as aid instruments for decision-making in the formulation of economic and social policies for the structural transformation of sub-regional economies.

To ECOWAS and sub-regional organisations (i) accelerate the organisation of the round table for donors for the financing of community development projects (CDP) in order to quickly implement identified projects.