ECOWAS and the International organization of the Francophonie (OIF) have signed Wednesday, 9th of July 2013 a technical cooperation agreement to strengthen the
use of French in the ECOWAS Commission.
Strengthening multilingualism in international organizations such as ECOWAS is among the goal of OIF which includes 77 member states sharing together french language. Among
these countries 11 are members of ECOWAS.
At the signing ceremony, the OIF Director of French language and linguistic diversity
stated that her organization wants “to support member states in order to be active and efficient in the international organizations such as ECOWAS”. For this reason, she said, “we strive to build the capacities of the member states in the field of linguistic and business”.
Closing the ceremony, the Chairperson, ECOWAS Vice president thanked the delegation for the substantial support that OIF brings to ECOWAS. “One of the long term benefits of ECOWAS and OIF partnership is to reduce barriers and linguistic divisions within ECOWAS” Vice president Toga MacIntosh said before encouraging OIF to “continue its efforts to strengthen the capacity of ECOWAS staffs.
The OIF delegation was composed of 5 members, among them, the Director of the French language and linguistic diversity, the French program manager for the International
Organizations, the language coordinator of the French Institute in Nigeria and
the representative of France Embassy in Nigeria.