Accra, Aug. 3, GNA - The second Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Small Arms Control Programme Steering Committee takes off in Abuja, Nigeria on August six to review progress on the process for ratification of the Convention on Small Arms in the Sub-region. The ECOWAS Small Arms Control Programme (ECOSAP) is a capacity building programme aimed at establishing a sustainable system for the control of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in West Africa. In an electronic mail to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on Friday, Mr. Oluwafisan Bankale, Policy, Advocacy and Communications Officer, Policy Unit of ECOSAP said the uncontrolled proliferation of SALW has been identified as a major fuel of the conflicts in West Africa. "As a result of these conflicts, the rate of development in the sub-region has suffered set-backs which ECOWAS Commission was working with partners including governments, donor community, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN) was poised to combat.

He explained that the Abuja Conference would be chaired by the ECOWAS Commission President, Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, and attended by representatives of stakeholders, including the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) regional officials from Mali, Senegal and the Africa Division in New York and civil society.

Other participants are from the Africa Union, the European Union representatives of donor countries namely, Canada, Finland, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The Steering Committee is made up of donor countries, the UNDP, European Union (EU) and ECOWAS. Its primary objective is to exercise oversight functions on programme planning and implementation.