Côte d'Ivoire would in September, host a high-level conference on financing development programmes (CDP) in the West African sub- region.

The conference would be a prelude to the roundtable of donors to finance the ECOWAS Community Development Programme (ECOWAS/CDP), after the successful conclusion of a participatory and inclusive process of formulating the CDP.

A statement from the Communication Directorate of ECOWAS signed by Mr Khoule Mamahdou, a Communications Official at ECOWAS, said the ECOWAS Commission has concluded a consultative process with its partners including the Commission of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, private sector and civil society stakeholders on the necessary coordination of action to be taken for the conference.

It said other partners are ECOWAS Bank for International Development , United Nation Economic Commission for Africa, Banque Ouest Africaine de Development, West Africa Power Project, and the Project Planning & Development Unit.

The statement said Dr Ibrahim Bocar Ba, the Commissioner for Macro-economic Policy and Economic Research of the ECOWAS Commission, who chaired the meeting, said the idea of organising the conference before the roundtable of donors, was to develop and operate a new strategy for mobilising internal resources in the region in order to self-finance a significant portion of its programmes.

“Without this mobilisation of resources for funding ECOWAS/CDP will be reduced to a mere wish of the Community,” Dr Ba explained adding that such inaction would result in a waste of all the efforts in the formulation phase and loss of investment opportunities for the development and integration of the region.

The statement said a Regional ECOWAS/CDP Document has already been developed, covering priority areas such as the integration of people; governance and human development; deepening economic integration and the development of infrastructure; wealth creation, co-operation and funding in West Africa.

During its 45th session held in July 2014 in Accra, the Conference of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS adopted the document and instructed the ECOWAS Commission to take the necessary action to mobilise resources for the financing of the ECOWAS/CDP and to eliminate duplication and lack of synergies between projects and programmes, the statement said

It said Sandra Oulaté Elleingand, the Director of Communication of the ECOWAS Commission, said a special website dedicated to both events that would contain all the documents and registration forms as well as conditions for participation in the two flagship events would be online in a few days.