Citizens for ECOWAS: ECOWAS NATIONAL UNITS TO VALIDATE OPERATIONAL MANUAL

ECOWAS NATIONAL UNITS TO VALIDATE OPERATIONAL MANUAL

A three-day annual meeting of the ECOWAS National Units is 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, Mrs. 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.

Citizens for ECOWAS