ECOWAS and UEMOA jointly organized from 6 to 10 June 2016 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso regional seminar meetings to prepare, with the stakeholders of the 11th EDF Regional Indicative Programme, the third meeting of the Strategic Orientation Committee (SOC) that will take place in Lomé on 22 and 23 June 2016.
The meeting allowed the two Institutions to review the internal process of projects pre-identification and optimise ownership of the on-going identification and formulation process of the priority projects.
The Ouagadougou meeting also helped to identify the main challenges and ways to overcome them and harmonise views and positions for the forthcoming meeting of the Strategic Orientation Committee (SOC). The participants also outlined key activities and projects to be submitted to the Strategic Orientation Committee (SOC).
The 11th EDF Regional Indicative Programme (RIP), signed on 6th July 2015 in Brussels between the European Union and the West African region represented by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) Commissions tasked the parties to proceed to the programming and the identification exercises leading to the implementation of the relevant projects and programmes qualified to be funded.