UN, ECOWAS discuss regional security

Officials of the UN and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ended exploratory talks on Saturday on ways to work with stakeholders in resolving security issues in the region. In a statement released on Saturday ECOWAS said the delegates, who met in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, considered issues relating to good governance, the absence of genuine national reconciliation in some ECOWAS states, the free circulation of arms in the subregion, refugees and internally displaced persons, child soldiers and street children, AIDS and malaria. Other issues included the harmonisation of views on the deployment of the community’s peacekeeping troops to the common borders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Delegates also discussed the political situation in Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau and the Casamance area of southern Senegal. The UN Assistant Secretary-General in the Political Affairs Department, Ibrahima Fall, led the 17-strong inter-agency UN delegation. He described the mission as one of stock-taking of the general situation in West Africa with a view to adopting a global approach to solve the region’s problems. In his opening speech, ECOWAS Executive Secretary Lansana Kouyate said the result of this and similar missions would “strengthen and increase the capacity of the UN to discharge its responsibility of ridding the world of poverty and ensuring that peace and stability reign supreme”. The mission is due to end its tour of the region in the Malian capital Bamako on 23 March.