Participants at ECOWAS workshop call for political will to advance free movement
Participants at an ECOWAS workshop on integrated trade have called on member states to exhibit the political will in removing barriers that inhibit trade and free movement of ECOWAS citizens across the sub -region.
They further urged member states and other stakeholders to uphold provisions under the ECOWAS protocols on free movement of persons and goods within the sub -region.
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The three-day validation workshop, organised by the Transport Directorate of the ECOWAS Commission, seeks to among others, validate reports and recommendations covered in a draft report of the trade and transport facilitation (TTF) study of the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Highway Development Project
It is being attended by project managers, technical experts, and government officials from relevant ministries and departments of Corridor Member States, the related Directorates of the ECOWAS Com-mission (Transport, Trade, Customs & Taxation and Free Movement & Migration), as well as financiers of the project such as the African Development, and the stakeholders.
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Abidjan - Lagos Corridor
The Abidjan-Lagos Corridor is a six lane dual carriage supranational highway from Abidjan to Lagos.
It extends over a length of almost 1,028 km, connects some of the most important and economically dynamic cities in Africa, namely: Abidjan, Accra, Cotonou, Lomé, and Lagos and covers a large part of the population of West Africa.
It also connects very dynamic seaports which serve all the landlocked countries of the region, namely Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.
One of the major components of the preparatory phase of the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Highway Development Project is the preparation and implementation of a comprehensive Trade and transport Facilitation strategy to provide seamless movement of goods, persons
and vehicles along the corridor.
The envisioned framework will cover all measures aligned with regional, continental and international trade facilitation agreements, eliminate border control delays and harassments, as well as other non-tariff barriers, and multiple control -checks on sections.
Importance
The Director of Transport at the ECOWAS Commission,Chris Appiah, said once completed, the project would further deepen regional integration, fostering trade, economic growth and sustainable development.
He said project’s trade and transport Facilitation framework would contain a comprehensive set of measures to be implemented together before and after the construction of the 6-lane dual carriage supranational highway
The framework, he explained was expected to contribute significantly to enhancing intra-regional trade, free movement community citizens, vehicles and related services under the ECOWAS regional integration trade, while positioning Member States properly to benefit from trading under the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
