Niamey (Niger) — The Economic Community of West African States Commission (ECOWAS) management team chaired by its President, M. Jean Claude Kassi Brou and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), through its sub regional office for West Africa represented by its Director, Ngone Diop held a virtual meeting on Wednesday 27 May 2020 to review the draft report of ECOWAS 2020 vision independent and final evaluation.
ECA is leading the technical dimension of the assignment started in January 2020 with the technical support of CRAD (Centre de Recherche et d'Appui-conseil pour le Developpement) and the contribution of the regional Office of UNDP based in Addis-Ababa and the regional Office of GIZ based in Abuja.
The Heads of State of ECOWAS adopted in June 2007 the Community long term development vision 2020, with the ambition to create a borderless, peaceful prosperous and cohesive region built on good governance, and where people have the capacity to access and harness the enormous resources through the creation of opportunities for sustainable development and environmental preservation. At less than one year from the end of the implementation period of the vision and its last operationalization framework-the Community Strategic Framework (CSF2016-2020)-, the Commission engaged its independent and final evaluation.
During his introductive speech, the President of the Commission of ECOWAS said that this evaluation is bended of two mandatory principles of public policy implementation steering and management: the accountability principle and lesson learning principle to inform the ongoing formulation of the new 2050 prospective vision of the Community. This regional assignment is also undertaken under the technical leadership of ECA and the support of the regional Office of UNDP and GIZ.
"We can't really go to Vision 2050 unless we make an evaluation on what happened in the Vision 2020", said Jean Claude Kassi Brou.
The independent and final evaluation, under the technical leadership of ECA, was informed by national consultations. The aim of the national consultation was in one side to handle the population perception on ECOWAS Commission performances along the 2020 vision implementation during the last fifteen years and another side to collect population aspirations for the next thirty upcoming years. This last outcome is mainly to inform the formulation of the 2050 prospective vision which stared since March 2020 and already made available the two first deliverable beside the Covid-19 impediments. The remaining stakeholders consultation will schedule in June 2020 under the constraint of the Covid-19 evolution.
The Director of the sub regional Office for West Africa of ECA, Ngone Diop thanked ECOWAS Commission for the confidence and consideration put to ECA by giving him the opportunity to lead this important regional project within United Nations family and the support of other regional development entities. For her, this illustrates the productive and fruitful partnership between ECOWAS Commission and ECA to make real and great the region prosperity for its population well-being.
Ngone Diop reiterated ECA full commitment to support ECOWAS 2050 prospective vision development and its first medium-term implementation framework and its associated monitoring and reporting tools. She promised that the valuable comments, inputs and orientation from the Commission management technical review will be properly considered and come up with a high-quality blueprint of ECOWAS 2020 vision independent and final evaluation.
This regional support is part of the core mission of the ECA to provide assistance in strengthening regional integration and promoting international cooperation for the development of Africa.
