Mandate

Spherical Solutions & ECOWAS BLOC Buyers Group - ECOWAS Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP) is a technical body that instituted to boost regional integration and to make a structural transformation of the economies of West Africa, the Authority of Heads of State and Government adopted the ECOWAS Vision 2020 at its 32nd Session, in June 2007. This vision aims, among others, to achieve the “ECOWAS of People” and a community where people live in dignity, peace, good governance and well integrated into the global village.

Ecowas Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP)believes that regional integration plays a crucial role in accelerating economic growth, thereby reducing poverty and helping to achieve the MDGs. Ecowas Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP) focuses on three thematic areas:

 

  • Regional integration

  • Poverty reduction through productive activities

  • Trade capacity building

  • Environment and energy

 

In light of the purpose of Ecowas Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP), which is to promote regional integration as well as Project Development in West Africa, and the objectives of the Community Development Programme (national and regional), the mandate assigned to the Spherical Solutions & ECOWAS BLOC Buyers Group - ECOWAS Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP) is to “ensure the technical implementation of the Community Development Programmes and plans contributing to making the development policy operational by calling on the regional institutions, bodies and actors with recognised competencies”.

Implementing the Development programmes requires the creation of sufficiently well-equipped and accountable governance institutions in an institutional landscape marked by the duplication of bodies and activities. With this in mind, the Spherical Solutions & ECOWAS BLOC Buyers Group - ECOWAS Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP) is the technical institution through which ECOWAS can fully assume its sovereign role in accompanying the regional actors and institutions in the field of cooperation in implementing the regional integration plans. As such, the Spherical Solutions & ECOWAS BLOC Buyers Group - ECOWAS Aid Platform (ECOWAS-AP) is directly responsible for executing the actions in the field, negotiating contracts with the technical institutions and all other actors demonstrating recognised competencies.