West Africa: ECOWAS Holds Decolonized Meeting On Texts Relating to Peace

16 August 2022
FrontPageAfrica (Monrovia)
By Henry Karmo

Monrovia — A Joint Committee of the Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected to hold a delocalized meeting on the theme: "Community texts relating to peace, security, democracy, and good governance.

Delegates at the meeting will also discuss, amongst many issues, challenges in their implementation and the oversight role of ECOWAS Parliament. The meet will begin Tuesday and ends on Saturday, August 20, 2022, in Banjul, The Gambia.

Three of the 14 Standing Committees of the Parliament, comprising the Committees on Political Affairs, Peace, Security and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) / Legal affairs and human rights / Social Affairs, Gender, and Women Empowerment, constitute the Joint Committee that will be meeting.

The main objective of the meeting is to create an opportunity for members of the Joint Committee to acquaint themselves with and take ownership of the ECOWAS texts on peace and security, democracy and good governance as well as identify the best mechanism for oversight for their effective implementation within Member States.

Since its creation on 28 May 1975, ECOWAS has adopted a significant number of texts aimed at preventing, managing and/or settling conflicts within the Community, as well as maintaining and promoting peace and regional security.

However, attempts to effectively implement these Community Texts have thrown up several apparent challenges. Consequently, the impact of these texts on improving the security and good governance climate and environment within the ECOWAS region, remains insufficiently evident.

It is based on this that the Joint Committee will meet to reflect on the role of parliamentary oversight in the effective implementation of the ECOWAS texts on Peace, Security, Democracy and Good Governance.

The ECOWAS Parliament is composed of 115 seats with each member State allotted a guaranteed minimum of five seats. The remaining 40 seats are distributed in proportion to the population of each country. Consequently, in total, Nigeria has 35 seats, followed by Ghana, with eight seats and Côte d'Ivoire, with seven seats. Others are, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal which are allotted six seats each, whereas Benin, Cabo Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo have five seats each.

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