The Vice President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Toga Gayewea McIntosh has underscored the need for the ECOWAS peace and security mechanisms to respond rapidly and effectively to crisis situations in the region, drawing lessons from the recent crises in Mali.
“We cannot continue to do the same thing year in year out, there has to be a reference point,” Dr. McIntosh said at the opening in Accra, Ghana on Monday 10th February 2014, of the Joint Meeting of regional Ambassadors accredited to ECOWAS and the Technical Committee on Political Affairs to validate the Report of the Mali After-Action Review.
Recalling the achievements and challenges of ECOWAS’ multi-faceted interventions in Mali, the Vice President noted that “Today, Mali is once again on a democratic path, and is embarking on national reconciliation, reconstruction and development.”
He therefore charged the Accra meeting which is considering the Consolidated Report of the Internal Review Session held last November in Lagos and the Report of the just-ended Experts’ Workshop detailing the analysis of the challenges, achievements and lessons learned from the Mali interventions, to come up with consolidated recommendations for consideration and adoption by the ECOWAS Mediation and Security Council (MSC) for onward submission to the Authority of Heads of State and Government.
In her keynote address, the ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, Mrs. Salamatu Hussaini Suleiman, said the reports under consideration were a product of “a series of retrospective analyses of the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the multidimensional crises in Mali; the actions or inactions of the Community and its diverse partners in their collective efforts to assist Mali in surmounting the crises and the pertinent recommendations emanating thereof.”
She urged the participants to “concentrate on the bigger picture, and be guided by their determination to ensure that the Region is endowed with an early warning, preventive diplomacy, conflict management and peace-building mechanisms that are predictable, efficient, and capable of rapid and effective response to current and future threats to regional peace and security.”
Speaking on behalf of Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Integration, Mrs. Hannah Tetteh, the Director of Political Affairs in the Ministry, Dr. Kodzo Alabo, said “the developments that occurred in Mali, however sad they were, serve as a good case study to help us put our house in order and not to go along the same path.”
“We must say ‘never again’ to such crisis that bring untold hardship to our people, particularly our women and children, and drastically derailed any progress on socio-economic development,” he added.
The Director expressed the hope that at the end of the review exercise “we should be better prepared as a Community to detect even the slightest early warning signs and to response promptly and appropriately to them, and better still, to prevent armed conflicts altogether.”
Echoing a similar sentiment, Mr. Coulibaly Drissa of Cote d’Ivoire, representing the chair of the Committee, and a representative of the Dean of ECOWAS Ambassadors Mahamane Maiga, both noted that there would be no economic development or regional integration without peace and security.
The ECOWAS Director of Political Affairs, Dr. Abdel-Fatau Musah, later set the tone for the discussions with a presentation on the background to the Malian crises, the achievements and challenges of the ECOWAS intervention in collaboration with the rest of the international community, and the lessons and recommendations therefrom.
