Director's Editorial - April / May 2009

 by Normand Lauzon,
Director, Sahel and West Africa Club

A lot is being done on Africa within the OECD. The 2009 edition of the African Economic Outlook (AEO) has just been released in Dakar at the 44th African Development Bank Annual Meetings; the 9th International Economic Conference on Africa brought together some 500 Africa-development experts; the African Partnership Forum (APF) hold its 12th APF meeting with political representatives from G8/OECD countries; and the Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) is pursuing, among other dossiers, the monitoring of the impacts of the global economic crisis on West Africa. Key findings are published within our newly launched quarterly review, the West Africa Observer.

To facilitate access to the various OECD works on Africa and to raise its visibility, the OECD set-up a regional entry point “OECD and Africa” (www.oecd.org/africa ) on its website. It presents the OECD’s major flagship publications on Africa, key topics and activities, OECD-Africa events, African partner organisations and other Africa-related web resources.

The SWAC Secretariat has been a driving force in the construction of this platform and will continue to be involved in its further development, updating and promotion. The experience of this pilot project might also be useful for setting-up other regional platforms (Asia, Latin America) within the OECD. The SWAC’s promotion of regional approaches is increasingly gaining attention within the OECD.

The SWAC team also continues to work, together with West African actors, on the development and implementation of regional strategies and policies in West Africa. Within the 4th restricted Food Crisis Prevention Network meeting (RPCA), network members set-out a series of recommendations for the prevention and management of possible food and nutritional crises in the West African region and discussed next steps for the implementation of the revised Food Aid Charter, a concrete example of regional aid effectiveness.

A case study on the spatial coherence of aid in Mali was launched during a SWAC mission to Bamako. The ECOWAS/SWAC Stakeholders meeting on the Cross-border Co-operation Programme, held in Abuja, brought together local cross-border actors and representatives from West African regional organisations to discuss operational modalities, follow-up actions and funding mechanisms of cross-border co-operation activities.

All these field-level activities illustrate the importance of listening to West African actors and ensure that the SWAC’s work is anchored in West African realities. In this issue, an insider-view of the ECOWAS Early Warning System is provided by Mr. Augustin Sagna, Head of Office of the ECOWARN Zone IV.