THE ECOWAS Commission has welcome greater support from the European Union, EU, in the fight against poverty as a potent means of curbing the destabilisation of the region by terrorists’ and insurgency activities.

This was disclosed was by Marcel de Souza, president of the ECOWAS Commission, while playing hosts to a delegation of the European Court of Auditors on Monday May 8, 2017 in Abuja.

While expressing appreciation to the EU for its human development support over the years, de Souza said that since terrorists usually get new recruits from the growing pool of youth who are unemployed, it had become necessary to reach out to partners to halt the easy access to cheap human material tools.

He noted in this regard that there was now a need for dialogue between Africa and Europe on how to create jobs for the youths.

The president told the visitors that in order to measure its progress, the ECOWAS Commission regularly carried out assessment of programmes and projects with the instrumentality of its strategic allocation committee meetings and political dialogues.

He stressed that despite the problem posed by terrorism, the ECOWAS is sustaining democratic culture in the region by strengthening the peace and security architecture that is designed to address the challenges.

De Souza gave a rundown its intervention efforts as well as situation reports in some states of the region which included The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Nigeria.

The stressed the need to implement the Conakry agreement in Guinea as a necessary requirement for peace to pave way for and the commencement of the reform process in that country.

He lauded the joint efforts of Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal in the successful restoration of democracy in The Gambia. The President said the financial assistance given by ECOWAS in aid of the north east of Nigeria, was meant to cushion the effects of Boko Haram in terms of shelter and other nutritional needs of the displaced.

Piotr Zych, the leader of the EU Court of Auditors, had briefed the president, of the delegation’s mission noting that the body deals with all expenses and accounts of the EU that relates with external actions which also includes financial and performance audit.

Accompanied by the body’s financial and compliance chief, Alina Milasiute and other officials, Zych said the team was looking at the needs while assessing the EU’s contributions to the African Union, AU, Peace and security architecture to determine whether programmes were covered, are duly implemented and have results.

De Souza was flanked by Halima Ahmed, the ECOWAS commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security and her counterpart for General Administration and Conference Stephen Anyemi Nartey, directors and other senior officials

The European court of Auditors will prepare a Report on its assessments of the EU support programmes Africa in 2018 and submit same to the European Parliament.

—  May 9, 2017 @ 16:55 GMT