ECOWAS Business News

Dear Comrades, Below is an opportunity not to be missed! This will be a lecture and engagement webinar to highlight the Pan African Parliament and focus on the following areas: • How can the Pan-African Parliament promote the interests of young people and their political participation at the African Union level? • How can the Pan-African Parliament leverage digitalization to engage the African youth? • How can the Pan-African Parliament effectively involve the youth in the promotion of peace and security on the continent? • The role of the Pan-African Parliament in mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the youth Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_oFzVYCJZTSiDZRPAfpt6 Vw

EAST AFRICA RISING GROUP PARTNERS DEVELOPMENT DISPATCH PODCAST FOR #SILENCINGTHEGUNS TWEET-CHAT (ECOWAS VS EAC) A Public Conversation titled:  RECs, Peace & Security- Lessons from West to East Africa At the AU 50th Anniversary on 25 May 2013, the Heads of State and Government "pledged not to bequeath the burden of conflicts to the next generation of Africans and undertake to end all wars in Africa by 2020". The AU theme for 2020 is "Silencing the guns: Creating conducive conditions for Africa's development". The premise of this theme is that socio-economic development is at risk without peace and security and both issues should be prioritised. In commemoration of this year's Africa Day on 25 May, East Africa Rising Group and DevDispatch are organising a public conversation via Twitter that will bring together voices from East and West Africa to discuss and share experiences on the role of RECs in addressing the challenges of conflict, governance and ins...

Decisions taken by government of Rwanda, including the establishment of a Rwandan Space Agency, and the decision to open schools from September 2020 in light of COVID19. 

eNCA TV Interview   1. What is the role of communicators ? The role of communicators goes beyond communicating. Their roles include story-telling; turning complex arguments and ideas into simple and digestible ones. In a crisis like this, communicators are the unacknowledged front liners – in the sense that they effectively unpack information from the technical team- Researchers/ Epidemiologists / Doctors and other cadres of medical specialists into practicable, edible and digestible information for the consumption of the public. They need to advance views that are not their own in ways that are objective and touch the core of the issue. 2. What has been your assessment on how governments on the continent have communicated about the pandemic? Governments have largely performed well in handling Communication around the pandemic. While everyone was caught flat-footed, those that have performed better have trodden the fine line between rule of law, human rights and freedoms.  Freedoms rem...

*WILL HYDROCARBON RICH AFRICAN  COUNTRIES BE LEFT GASPING FOR BREATH IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE  CORONAVIRUS?* _Towards new imperatives for natural resource diversification_. *By*: *Fatima Denton, PhD* - _Fatima Denton is the Director of the Institute for Natural Resources in Africa at the United Nations University, Ghana_. Humanity  is witnessing  some of the most  profound changes seen  since the Great Depression.  And again, it is the vulnerable  among us who will suffer the worst  consequences. We are out on a limb,  witnessing the most disruptive global transformational  mutations observed in the past 100 years.  Several  parallels  can be drawn  between today's  Coronavirus and Albert  Camus' 1947 classic La Peste  – translated as "The 'Plague", set  in Oran, Algeria. True, this new Coronavirus  pandemic, Covid-19, bears eerie resemblance to Camus'  plague. Written at a time just prior to the...

ECOWAS Commission, the executive arm of the ECOWAS institutions, has launched *ECOWAS Commission Staff Solidarity Fund for COVID19*, which target is *USD1 million as contributions from staff* across ECOWAS. Here is a copy of the rationale of the Fund picked from the statement, which is available upon request at ecowasbusinessnews@gmail.com : "Through this Solidarity Fund, we aim to support our Member States to:   i. *contain the spread of the disease* by supporting measures to "flatten the curve" and lower infection rates; ii. detect and understand the *magnitude and spread of the disease* ;   iii. *care for patients and heath care workers* in isolation or treatment centres; and   iv. *support organizations and people* whose livelihoods have been disrupted by the pandemic." ENDs

📌#EAST AFRICA RISING 6.0 -- Vignette #1 -- Let the Doors Open Wide! Compared to the ECOWAS sub-region, East Africa's foray into economic integration commenced in 1967 -- almost a good decade before ECOWAS was established in 1975. By the time the first EAC collapsed in 1977, ECOWAS was a mere institutional baby.  By the time EAC was re-established in 1999, ECOWAS had gone through numerous strides in those 22 years. This  included ending the Sierra Leone/Liberian civil wars that dogged Ecowas from 1990-1997, but catapulted the regional institution into superstar status with an indigenous West African force under ECOMOG that single-handedly took out Charles Taylor.  ECOWAS had also revised its Treaty in 1993, conferring supranationality onto the West African regional institution, including an article 70 that ensured ECOWAS would enjoy predictable internally-generated funding with an ECOWAS levy. Today, ECOWAS continues to enjoy predictable regional funding. Regrettably, even after 19...