Niamey — The Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Giovanie Biha, will be in Niger next week for meetings with top government officials to discuss matters of common interest.

Ms. Biha will also take advantage of her presence in the country to participate in a High-Level Policy Dialogue on Conflict and Development in the Sahel Region which the ECA and the Government of Niger are co-organising. The dialogue takes place from September 13 to 14, 2017.

Ms. Biha will be accompanied by the Director of the ECA Sub-Regional Office for West Africa, Dimitri Sanga.

Created in 1958, the ECA is one of the five regional commissions under the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

As a UN regional body in Africa, the ECA has a mandate to support economic and social development of Member-States, promote regional integration and international cooperation for the development of Africa.

With headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the ECA is currently made up of 54 Member-States spread over five Sub-Regions: North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa.

The Sub-Regional Office for West Africa, based in Niamey, Niger, covers 15 ECOWAS Member-States, namely: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

The office provides support to Niger in areas such as formulating and implementing its Economic and Social Development Plan (ESDP), improving the production and use of statistics to support the formulation of policies, gender questions, land issues and others.

For more information, contact: Tahirou Gouro, Communication Officer, ECA-SRO/WA,

Mob.: +227 90 99 99 39, Email: gouro2@un.org

Sub-Regional Office for West Africa

428 Avenue du Fleuve Niger

P.O. Box: 744

Niamey, Niger

Tel.: (+227) 20 722961

Fax: (+227) 20 722894

Web: www.uneca.org/sro-wa