ACBF SIGNS US$1.5 MILLION GRANT AGREEMENT WITH THE ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF WEST AFRICAN STATES (ECOWAS).

ACBF signed a 1.5 million Grant Agreement in Abuja, Nigeria on August 8, 2007 with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ECOWAS is a regional economic community with a membership of 15 countries. It seeks to promote co-operation and integration in economic, social and cultural activities, ultimately leading to the establishment of an economic and monetary union through total integration of the national economies of member states. The organization also aims to raise the living standards of the people of the sub-region, , maintain and enhance economic stability, foster relations among member states and contribute to the progress and development of the African Continent. The revised treaty of 1993, which seeks enhanced economic and political co-operation among member states, targets the achievement of a common market and a single currency as core economic objectives.

Specifically, this four year project seeks to strengthen the capacity of ECOWAS to perform its role of statistical harmonization in its member countries by designing broad frameworks for harmonizing statistical legal structures, nomenclatures, concepts, survey methodologies, and developing standard statistical systems for cross-country comparability.
The Heads of State and Government of the ECOWAS member countries decided to push for the restructuring of the Secretariat a step further by transforming it into a Commission. This transformation is geared towards better adjustment to the international environment for the Commission to play a more effective role in the integration and development process and provide support to Member States in the building of their capacities for development programs and projects implementation. This transformation will not be effective without coordinated interventions in statistical capacity building. . The importance of statistical capacity building is well perceived in the new ECOWAS structure where the existing Statistics Division will be upgraded to a Department level.

Present at the Grant Agreement signing ceremony was the ACBF Executive Secretary, Dr. Saumana Sako and Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas President, ECOWAS Commission.