President Kabbah Home As Accra Summit Ends
By Yusuf Alghali

The two-day Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Summit on "The Challenges of Regional Integration and the Implementation of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Initiative" ended in Accra, Ghana Saturday with the World Bank President James Wolfensohn and ECOWAS leaders arriving at decisions to promote greater regional cooperation and development.

In this direction, the World Bank President announced a USD 4.5 billion support package for African development programmes for the year 2004, of which USD 1.7 billion would go to much needed infrastructural development projects. An additional USD 450 million, he said, has been earmarked for regional integration projects, including trade, infrastructural needs and post conflict reconstruction programmes for countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Earlier, President Kabbah together with four other regional Heads of State who attended the summit, had discussed the challenges of regional integration and NEPAD implementation as well ways to accelerate regional trade reforms and integration.

Presenting a summary of the deliberations and decisions reached at the closing session, ECOWAS Executive Secretary Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas noted the summit's commendation of the collective efforts being made towards the implementation of the NEPAD agenda within the framework of the Yamasokro Plan of Action.

Chambas also reported that the ECOWAS Chairman and summit host, Ghana's President John Agyekum Kufuor, had emphasised the renewed commitment of West Africa to the aspiration of regional reintegration, further pointing out that a regional approach to the implementation of the NEPAD initiative would also help facilitate West Africa's overall reintegration process.

The building of the requisite roads infrastructure, trade relations and maintaining peace and security have been listed as the three main ECOWAS priority areas and national leaders present appealed to the World Bank for support to the ECOWAS - NEPAD initiative. Heads of State thus invited the World Bank President to provide additional financial resources and technical assistance to West African countries for regional project support, project preparation and project financing support.

In his statements, the World Bank boss, James Wolfensohn, welcomed the declared commitment of African leaders to the regional integration agenda and expressed the readiness of the World Bank as an institution to strengthen its partnership with Africa. He however called for what he referred to as "a sustained and pragmatic approach to programme implementation to ensure that regional integration becomes truly operational".

He agreed to the adoption of an Accra Short Term Plan of Action for selected ECOWAS-NEPAD programmes and to accelerate the implementation of selected regional integration and NEPAD programmes to cover market access for West African exports, energy, road and transport infrastructure, telecommunications, peace, security and post conflict reconstruction.

The Plan of Action would also address the issue of monitoring the regional implementation of ECOWAS-NEPAD Programmes, for which a joint ECOWAS-World Bank Task Force would be set up. Wolfensohn further made it clear that the plan of action would be based on the principles of partnership, periodic consultations among stakeholders and shared responsibility.

Also in his formal address, ECOWAS Chairman, President Kufuor observed that the participation of the President of the World Bank, a central figure in the donor community, should be used to strengthen West Africa's message to the world that the region "is ready to use sound socio-political leadership and mutually beneficial partnerships and the development of the private sector". "Our priorities now are to network our countries to open up our substantial markets, develop our human resources and fine tune the financial and legal framework for business, so that we can join the mainstream and achieve our ultimate objective of becoming equal players in the global market place," the Ghanaian leader said.