Date: 2024-07-17 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00024768
REGIONAL ORGANIZATION
ECOWAS
ECOWAS holds Working Session to Develop a Contingency Plan for the Management of Displaced Persons in the ECOWAS Region ... June 2023
ECOWAS
ECOWAS holds Working Session to Develop a Contingency Plan for the Management of Displaced Persons in the ECOWAS Region ... June 2023
Original article: https://ecowas.int/ecowas-holds-working-session-to-develop-a-contingency-plan-for-the-management-of-displaced-persons-in-the-ecowas-region/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
As I have noted elsewhere, I did consultancy assignments for ECOWAS at a relatively early stage in my internatonal career and was impressed by the role that political leaders in the region seemed to be playing internationally.
At the same time it was pretty clear that ECOWAS did not have anything like the human, financial or physical resources needed to make much of a difference ... rather it served as an 'excuse' so that powerful nations with resources could excuse themselves from doing anything of meaningful use. This has been pretty much the universal behavior of rich countries for the past 50 years and, to my mind, explains a lot of what has gone wrong in the modern world.
There is a role for 'talk', but talk cannot be a substitute for 'walk' and unfortunately there is rarely enough commitment of financial and physical resources for important initiatives to actually make a difference.
I spent a lot of consulting time 'on the ground' in a lot of different places aroumd the world and some of my lasting memories are to do with the faded painted signs that have been left behind after World Bank, or UN, or bilateral aid agencies have 'finished' their projects and for all practical purposes 'nothing' of any lasting significance has been achieved.
Sadly, too many people in rich countries point at this and conclude that development assistance should end completely ... why bother when it is failing? I disagree completely with this attitude and rather want to see competent analysis of why projects did not succeed and what should be changed and done to make them successful.
In this context, I am reminded of a small UN project in Sierra Leone that I was asked to evaluate in the early 1990s. It was a quite small project to give support to a community that was almost 100% supported by an arisanal fishery. There were two UN paid advisors on the project, one who was probably in his 40s and a younger man who was probably in his late 20s. Neither had much experience working for official 'development projects' but both had some practical experience operating in the business world somewhere in Africa. The UN project had a modest amount of 'real' money that could be used to buy things for the project ... by 'real' money I mean international convertible currency ... and these two project managers started to use this money in the most productive way possible. Bluntly put ... these guys understood the value of 'investing' money rather then 'spending' money. My job in large part was to compare what the project was planning to do ... what it was meant to do ... and what it actually got done.
If my memory serves me well, the project called for the training of four women to 'smoke' fish for local consumption. These two advisors saw value in this training and by the time I got to evaluate the project performance there were more than 40 women who had been trained and there was a triving local trade in smoke fish with traders coming to the remote fishing village in order to sell the product many miles from the coast.
Because the local road to the village was in very very bad condition and virtually impassable during the rains, something needed to be done. There was nothing in the 'project' do pay for this, but the local folk wanted it and needed it and set about getting it. The two project leaders facilitated 'organization' so that what was needed to be done got done. Local fisherfolk and local traders committed their labor, and the project 'loaned' some money to pay for materials ... and the work got done. The project got its money back ... but in the UN system, and in most government accounting systems around the world ... there are all sorts of ways that money can diminish but no way to account for money growing!!!!!!!!!!
There were several hundred fishing canoes in this small fishery. Most of the canoes had outboard engines and many were old and no longer working. The project had funding for a very small number of new outboard engined, but instead of buying just a few new engines the project leaders used the same amount of money to train a mechanic and buy spare parts. Initially this delivered about ten times as many 'working' engines as the project had planned. But this was not 'free' to the fishermen with the canoes, but went into a kitty to do more. The more was to train a second mechanic and a third and so on and to buy the essential spare parts that were needed to get old engines running.
My assessment was that this project was achieving way more than 10 times what had been 'planned' within the 'UN project document' that had been used to authorize the project. I would have thought that the UN system would have been pretty proud of this accomplishment. But I was wrong.
Peter Burgess
07 Jun, 2023
Abuja, Nigeria, June 05, 2023. The ECOWAS Commission in collaboration with the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) is holding a working session in Abuja, Nigeria from June 5th – 9th, 2023 to develop a contingency plan for the management of displaced persons within the Region.
The ECOWAS region has been recently plagued by population movements and displacements with a detrimental impact on security, social, environmental, and health aspects. To enhance national capacities and aid the displaced populations, the West African Health Organisation under the auspices of the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission and through the Regional Centre for Surveillance and Disease Control (RCSDC), the Department of Agriculture and Economic Affairs and the Department of Human Development and Social Affairs initiated the development of an ECOWAS joint contingency plan to provide sustainable solutions. In this regard, a Regional Technical Working Group was set up.
The Opening Ceremony was attended by Madam Massandjé Touré-Litse, Commissioner, Economic Affairs and Agriculture and Prof. Fatou Sarr, Commissioner, Human Development and Social Affairs of the ECOWAS Commission.
H.E. Madam Damtien L. Tchintchibidja, the Vice-President of the ECOWAS Commission in her opening remarks emphasised our collective responsibility as a Region to respond to various alerts by reflecting on the different aspects of these issues and come up with appropriate solutions. “It will take concerted and consistent efforts to address issues such as irregular migration, terrorist attacks, trans-border crimes, farmer-herder conflicts, human trafficking and political violence” the Vice-President added.
In his statement, Dr. Melchior Athanase Aïssi, the Director General of WAHO highlighted the importance of developing a contingency plan to strengthen the capacities of national health systems and to enhance ECOWAS’s support to Member States.
The 5-day working session will enable participants to understand the background and situation of returning migrants, displaced persons, and asylum seekers in the Region, discuss support plans and how to strengthen the national health systems in relation to migrants and refugees’ health.
