Ecowas President Blames Crises for Sub-Regional Poverty

from All Africa

This Day (Lagos)

By Juliana Taiwo
Abuja

President, ECOWAS Commission, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, has lamented that the absence of peace and security in the sub-region is breeding poverty and making life unbearable.

He said this at the two-day capacity-building training on security threats for countries in the West African sub-region, which opened in Abuja yesterday, adding that "economic integration and development within the sub-region cannot be achieved without peace and security.

The growing intensity and duration of conflicts in Africa are primarily as a result of bad governance, economic failure and proliferation of small arms."

The training, entitled: Conflict Information Analysis and Threats in West Africa, was organised by the African Centre for Strategic Research and Studies, National Defence College (NDC), Abuja. 30 officials of ECOWAS member states attended the training funded by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Commandant of the NDC, Rear Admiral Anthony Isah, while declaring the training open, said it was part of the United Nations programme aimed at preparing the sub-region for using the early warning system in the collection and analysis of data, formulation and analysis to the end-user.

He said with Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire making the region a hotbed of conflicts, the UN chose the NDC as a Centre of Excellence, to empower the ECOWAS member nations.He, therefore, admonished participants to "identify the critical developments in a timely manner, to formulate coherent response strategies to either prevent or limit the effects of conflict."