Accra, July 21, GNA - The African Development Bank (ADB) and the African Development Fund (ADF) have signed an agreement with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which provides a framework for cooperation between the Bank and the Sub-Regional Economic Grouping.

A statement received by the GNA in Accra on Monday from the ADB in Tunis said the President of the ADB Group, Mr Omar Kabbaj, signed the agreement on behalf of the Bank, while Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, Executive Secretary of ECOWAS signed for ECOWAS.

Mr Kabbaj said the agreement provides the Bank a good opportunity to realise its key mandate of promoting economic cooperation and regional integration in Africa.

"The agreement we have signed provides the opportunity for the Bank to assist ECOWAS not only in the traditional areas of development activities, but also in its new challenges to launch and manage an integrated and successful economic community under a single monetary union," Mr Kabbaj said.

The Agreement identifies areas of priority interventions such as capacity- building and human resource development, information and communication technology, infrastructure and services, monetary integration, customs union, environment, agriculture, industry, development financing, gender and poverty reduction, among other things. Mr Kabbaj said it was in pursuit of its mandate of promoting economic cooperation and regional integration in Africa that the Bank concluded several cooperation agreements with other regional and sub-regional groupings such as the African Union; Economic and Monetary Union of West African States (UEMOA); East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

The ADB President said since 1987, the Bank Group had committed resources to financing several studies and technical assistance proposals from the ECOWAS in transport, communications, social and environmental sub-sectors, among other areas.

"Currently the Bank is actively involved with a number of multilateral institutions, in post-conflict rehabilitation programmes in some West African countries."

Mr Kabbaj said besides the agreement was timely, coming at a time the Sub-Region was faced with teething challenges, increasing focus on regional integration as a framework for accelerating development and a period of emergence of a number of initiatives such as the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the formulation of Millennium Goals as well as the Bank's own Strategic Plan 2003-2007. Dr Chambas commended the Bank Group for its contribution in the financing of a number of projects, including 3.3 million dollars ADB grant for studies on railways interconnection in West Africa and another two million dollars under negotiation for the regional road transport facilitation programme.

"I wish to make a public acknowledgement of the perfect understanding that exists between ADB and ECOWAS in the implementation of the regional infrastructure programme of NEPAD in West Africa," he said.

Dr Chambas said the development finance community was devoting greater attention to the West African integration process with assistance being offered by many donors, adding that with the signing of the agreement, the ADB Group would occupy the centre stage in the ECOWAS resource mobilisation programme.

ECOWAS, which groups 15 countries in the Sub-Region with divergent languages and cultures, was established in 1975. It is considered to be a good example of regional integration in Africa, after it successfully established a protocol on free movement of persons and goods across frontiers.