The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, Commission has moved to strengthen its co-operation with the Folke Bernadotte Academy through the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre to reinforce the peace and security architecture in West Africa.
The Commissioner for Human Development and Social Affairs of the ECOWAS Commission, Professor Fatou Sarr who received the Head of the Regional Africa Programme at the Folke Bernadotte Academy, Ms Lena Kjellberg at the Commission’s Headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria.
The strategic partnership between the two institutions provides a new collaborative platform that further focuses the reflections and initiatives of both institutions on gender-sensitive processes and approaches in regional peace and security efforts in general, while remaining open to other areas related to gender and development issues in the West African region.
The partnership aimed to promote mutual learning and the exchange of experiences on the different institutional approaches of the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre and the Folke Bernadotte Academy in their role in promoting gender equality and peacebuilding in the region.
As part of this renewal process, ECOWAS is implementing critical and strategic programmes that will deepen cohesion and progressively eliminate identified barriers to full integration.
In this way, the estimated 300 million citizens of the community can ultimately take ownership for the realization of the new vision of moving from an ECOWAS of States to an “ECOWAS of the People: Peace and Prosperity to All” by 2050.