The 29th ordinary Summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), approved the conversion of its Executive Secretariat into a Commission.
The Commission, to be headed by a President assisted by a Deputy and seven other Commissioners, would enable the sub-regional grouping to have better focus in the discharge of its core function.
In a communiqué at the end of the summit the Heads of State and Government emphasised the importance of ensuring that the Commission had a structure that would be efficient and effective in achieving the objectives of the organisation.
The summit also called for measures to ensure adequate funding of programmes of the organisation by making sufficient financing provisions and controlling administrative expenditure.
It recommended the establishment of an ECOWAS Project Development and Implementation Unit (PDIU) to accelerate the realisation of crucial regional infrastructure projects in sectors such as energy, telecommunications and transport.
The Heads of State and Governments also endorsed other recommendations from the preceding meeting of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, including those for the harmonisation of telecommunications services that would culminate in a region-wide GSM roaming facility through a single SIM card.
They approved the use of the Special Fund for Telecommunications to plug identified gaps in existing inter-state links that would facilitate cross-border telecommunications connectivity.
The summit approved a management structure that would ensure the implementation of identified projects under the West African Power Pool (WAPP) programme to improve access of Member States to electric energy through the inter-connections of their grids. The World Bank had already approved a funding of 450 million US dollars.
The Heads of State and Government endorsed an action plan for the implementation of the ECOWAS Regional Agriculture Policy (ECOWAP), which was approved at the last summit in Accra.
ECOWAP is an initiative to improve agricultural productivity to enable the sub-region to attain food-sufficiency, standardize agricultural produce, improve the dissemination of agricultural information, enhance the health of West African citizens as well as the international competitiveness of farmers.
They also approved that the Secretariat should sign a Memorandum of Understanding with private sector promoters for the establishment of a regional airline to eliminate the existing difficulties in intra-community air travel.
The summit reviewed the security situation in the sub-region and expressed satisfaction with the progressive return of peace and stability, particularly with the historic elections in Liberia, which produced Africa's first elected female President as well as the polls in Guinea Bissau.
On Cote d'Ivoire, they expressed satisfaction with the emergence of a new Prime Minister acceptable to all the parties as well as the formation of a government of national unity and urged the parties to continue to cooperate to ensure successful disarmament and the conduct of elections in October 2006.
They pledged to support internal dialogue of parties in Togo as well as the dialogue with the European Union.
The Heads of State and Governments pledged their determination to remain engaged in Member States coming out of crisis and to work with the international community to address the post-conflict challenges, particularly in Guinea Bissau and Liberia, both of which needed substantial the infusion of resources for reconstruction, rehabilitation as well as the implementation of programmes that would ensure sustainable development and employment.
They approved the implementation of a four-band Common
External Tariff (CET) for the region to align the tariff structure in the seven remaining countries with those of the eight countries of the Economic and Monetary Union of West Africa (UEMOA), which already operated the tariff regime.
Other issues approved by the Summit included the revised regulation of GIABA, which would expand the mandate of the ECOWAS institution to include responsibility for leading the regional effort to combat terrorism in addition to its other functions of combating drug trafficking and money laundering.
The summit renewed the mandate of Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas as the Executive Secretary and re-elected President Mamadou Tandja as its Chairman.
It approved a budget of 80 million units of account (approximately 121 million US dollars) for the operations of the Secretariat and institutions of the Community.