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Add to Preferred SourcesThe Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are to strengthen their existing cooperation to enhance the delivery of humanitarian services to the West African region.
The two organisations are reviewing the current partnership documents with a view to appraise the expansion of areas of collaboration and develop a plan of action for 2019.
At the opening their two-day joint consultative meeting on the 18th of March 2019 in Abuja, Nigeria, the ECOWAS Commission’s Commissioner for Social Affairs and Gender Dr. Siga Fatima Jagne stated that there is a need for improved synergy, timely intervention and effective delivery that will benefit both organisations and citizens of Member States in line with the ECOWAS Vision 2010.
Stressing that the meeting will also help to define joint strategies and approaches to effectively address existing and new challenges at both national and regional levels, Commissioner Jagne opined that the endeavor is expected to significantly raise the standard of living of the people “through conscious and inclusive programmes that will guarantee a bright future for West Africa and shape the destiny of the region”
Since the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by both bodies in 2001, the partnership has helped in the facilitation of post-conflict reintegration of returnees in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau, the establishment and capacity building of the ECOWAS Emergency Response Team (EERT).
Commissioner Jagne, however, maintained that despite the positive strides made, emerging issues such as terrorism, climate change/global warming and mixed migration in the ECOWAS region including the scale and incidence of humanitarian emergencies and their impact on ECOWAS citizens, have rendered the humanitarian terrain more difficult.
This reality, she emphasised, necessitates the strengthening and broadening of the ECOWAS/UNHCR partnership in order to effectively deal with the issues.
The Two-Day meeting is featuring presentations on early warning systems, the ECOWAS Peace Fund, the ECOWAS child Policy, regional social protection policy, the ECOWAS mixed Migration policy among others.
Original source: ECOWAS
Published on 19 March 2019