Sweden pledges to continue short-term assistance to ECOWAS in three main areas specially on regional cross-border initiatives

Sweden on Tuesday, 10th July 2007 indicated it will continue to focus its short-term support for ECOWAS (2007-2008) on the three main areas of capacity building in trade negotiations, the ECOWAS Small Arms Programme and regional trans-border initiatives.

This was one of the outcomes of the inaugural collaboration meeting between an ECOWAS delegation and a delegation from Sweden.

The Swedish delegation, led by the country’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Lars-Owe Persson, also raised the prospect of additional institutional support for ECOWAS during the first collaboration meeting between them to explore additional areas of cooperation based on their February 2006 framework agreement.

The framework agreement is anchored on five main objectives - reinforcing the efforts of the poor in the region to improve their quality of life, creating a peaceful and secure region, promoting effective and sustainable regional cooperation, integration and development and strengthening regional institutions as well as partners organizations.

While expressing satisfaction with the presentations by ECOWAS regarding the five identified areas proposed for additional cooperation, the delegation said the Swedish side would be in a better position to consider the proposals after receiving some requested documents from ECOWAS.

These are the ECOWAS strategic vision document, the capacity building strategic framework, the medium-term action plan, the 2007 budget and the donor matrix.

The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, identified the five main areas during the opening of the meeting. These, according to him, relate to conflict management and prevention, economic cooperation and integration, common infrastructure and shared natural resources as well as capacity building for ECOWAS institutions.

“It is pertinent to note that the agreed broad areas of cooperation conform to the strategic vision of ECOWAS adopted at its recent summit in Abuja,” he said in remarks at the opening of the one-day meeting.

“Indeed, already the Swedish government is assisting ECOWAS in regional trade negotiations capacity building with an amount of 11,800,000 (eleven million, eight hundred thousand Swedish Kroners) covering the period 2003-2006,” he added.

The ECOWAS strategic vision document seeks, among other things, to create a borderless zone in which the citizens can access and harness the region’s enormous resources to promote its development as well as transact business and live in dignity under the rule of law within a zone that is integral to the African continent.

from "ECOWAS Press releases". Abuja, 11 July 2007

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