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 Background
The Strategy and Policy Group (SPG), the Club’s Board of Directors, meets twice a year to examine the work accomplished and to review and approve the SWAC’s Work Plan. Following the presentation of the 2008-2012 Work Plan at the SPG meeting in January 2008, the June meeting focused on the 2008 budgetary situation and future prospects. The SWAC’s Secretariat is proactively addressing these issues by presenting its restructuring plans to its SPG members.
Objectives
The meeting had a double agenda. It aimed to exchange views with SPG members on:
- The SWAC's financial situation and prospects
- The SWAC's future
Key Outcomes
- New management structure: Main Secretariat & Operational Programme
SPG members approved the SWAC’s proposal to set up a new approach to its budgetary and financial management, based on a two‐tier management with a smaller main Secretariat, responsible for Secretariat’s constant services to its members and an operational programme.
SPG members also agreed that the SWAC should:
- Conclude with the ECOWAS Commission and other regional partner organisations multi‐year partnership agreements (MOU) to facilitate the funding of joint activities
- Respond to specific requests from SWAC’s financial contributors (for example, a project on child labour on West Africa cocoa plantations, requested by the Belgian Delegation; work on complementarities between West African regional organisations, etc.)
- Reply to calls for proposals issued by large international institutions, notably the European Commission, keeping in line with the SWAC’s orientations and Work Plan
- Define products (thematic reports, policy briefs, synthetic analysis, thematic maps, etc.) and results that are objectively verifiable
- Strengthen its collaboration with other OECD Directorates, in particular within the OECD Development Cluster
Services
SPG members recommended that the SWAC team should strengthen its services to its members, in particular by:
- Providing access to regional information on the structural evolutions in the region
- Providing updated information on events in the region and the international environment within the structural changes
- Synthesizing “the state of the debate” and outlining the interest in taking into account the regional dimension
- Improving its operational function geared towards supporting the formulation and implementation of regional policies and strategies
- Further developing its contact network to strengthen the SWAC’s outreach capacities and help SPG members enter into dialogue with West African opinion leaders
Next Steps
The SPG mandated the Secretariat to implement this restructuration as soon as possible. Progress made in the implementation of this restructuring plan will be assessed at the end of 2008 with another evaluation at the end of 2009.
Relevant Documents
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