A three-day annual meeting of the ECOWAS National Units got underway in Abuja to finalize and validate a draft Operational Manual to be submitted later this year to the Council of Ministers for adoption.
The meeting, which opened on Monday 19th August 2013, under the chairmanship of the ECOWAS Commissioner for Administration and Finance, Khadi Ramatu Saccoh, will also provide participants with the opportunity to share experiences on regional integration programmes in Member States.
They are also expected to discuss how to enhance ECOWAS visibility and strengthen the countries’ participation in the implementation of integration programmes to ensure effective ownership.
The 65th Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers in its report urged the ECOWAS Commission to develop a detailed operational manual with supplementary guiding principles.
To this end, ECOWAS Institutions, special representatives and National Units at their recent 7th Joint Retreat, agreed that the draft Operational Manual should be sent to the Heads of the National Units for consideration and comments prior to its adoption by the statutory authorities.
Consequently, the document was submitted to Member States and their observations were incorporated in the draft Manual for validation by the Abuja meeting.
The operational manual, among others, details the functions, structure, institutional mechanisms as well as the financial management procedures of National Units, which are charged with the coordination of regional integration issues in each member state.
Apart from Heads of National Units, officials of the ECOWAS Commission’s Directorates of External Affairs, Finance, Legal Affairs, Conference and Protocol, Communication, Human Resources, Community Computer Centre as well as Monitoring and Evaluation Unit are also attending the meeting.
