COMCEC
Malnutrition in the OIC Member
Countries: A Trap for Poverty
Economic Community of WestAfrican States (ECOWAS)
OIC Member countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali,
Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.
ECOWAS is a regional grouping of fifteen countries which aims to promote economic
integration across the West African Region. ECOWAS headquarters has a coordinating
mechanism for nutrition and food security. Given the wide range of different actors in
agriculture, food security and nutrition initiatives in West Africa (discussed in further detail
below), ECOWAS is supposed to fulfil a coordinating role. However its efforts are hampered by
funding challenges: only a small amount of the planned funding has been disbursed due in part
to humanitarian crises (notably Ebola) which have diverted funds for coordination and leading
to a situation where some donors find it easier, especially in the short term, to circumvent
ECOWAS policies (Crola, de Miguel, and Cortes 2015). An analysis of ECOWAS's efforts to
bring together a regional agricultural policy have found that regional efforts are significantly
fragmented, and ECOWAS has not been successful in bringing together development partners
(Crola, de Miguel, and Cortes 2015).
Hunger-Free Initiative for West Africa was a three-years programme specifically seeking to
keep food and nutrition security high on the agenda in meetings of both ECOWAS as well as
within member countries. The project had three main objectives, the first was around
developing a participatory and multi-stakeholder strategy and process for a hunger-free West
Africa. This included increasing ECOWAS's presence and participation in global debates by
supporting the compiling of national priorities and developing specific mechanisms that allow
for discussions made at the regional and global level to be fed back directly to ECOWAS
member states, for example new right to food guidelines. Additionally, it sought to increase the
capacity of the ECOWAS parliament around issues of food security and nutrition. The second
objective was to combine social protection programmes with agricultural programmes to
provide pathways to graduation from these programmes as well as improving regional level
food security. The third objective was to ensure that nutrition is mainstreamed in regional and
national agricultural plans and budgets (FAO, n.d.)
ECOWAP, which is the ECOWAS Regional Agricultural Policy, was established in 2010 and
has a role in defining policy guidelines as well as mobilising and implementing funding from
both technical and financial partners in the field of agriculture, food security and nutrition; a
role shared with the West African Economic and Monitoring Unit and the Permanent Inter­
State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). Both ECOWAP and WAEMU are
promoting regional integration and have aimed to coordinate regulations, strategies and action
plans access the 8 countries which are members of both groups.
ECOWAP has been helpful in developing a data base of all the projects and programmes funded
in West Africa relating to agriculture, food security and nutrition. However the group faces a
number of key challenges including low levels of participation in meetings, especially of key
donors (participation in the groups is not institutionalised, meaning its dependant on
individuals); and those individuals who attend those meetings often do not have the mandates
to make key decisions (Crola, de Miguel, and Cortes 2015).
The West African Health Organization (WAHO) is the specialised health agency of
ECOWAS, seeking to harmonise policies. The ECOWAS Nutrition forum, has been meeting since
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