German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits the ECOWAS Commission

In furtherance of the excellent relations between the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Federal Republic of Germany, the President of the ECOWAS Commission Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, will play host to the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Mrs. Angela Merkel, on the 31st of August 2018.

Chancellor Merkel who is being accompanied by an entourage made up of senior officials, diplomats, journalists as well as a business delegation, is expected to discuss matters of common interest to both parties with a view to strengthening the existing ECOWAS-Germany Cooperation.

Germany has regularly been providing financial and technical support to ECOWAS through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Frederich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in the areas of organisational development, peace and conflict prevention, the ECOWAS Early Warn¬ing System (ECOWARN), electoral assistance as well as trade harmonization.

Other German institutions such as the state Bank-Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and Germany’s national Metrology Institute- the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) are also supporting ECOWAS with their respective financial and technical expertise.

The aim of this support is to improve the capacity of ECOWAS in the execution of its core mandate, which is to facilitate economic and political inte¬gration in West Africa and to strengthen its monitoring and evaluation systems and management processes.

Chancellor Merkel’s visit to the ECOWAS Commission follows an earlier one in 2011. In demonstration of the robust nature of the ECOWAS-German relationship, other German top-level officials and decision makers have visited the ECOWAS Commission.

Former German President Joachim Gauck and the country’s former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now the Federal President, had also paid official visits to the Commission in February and October 2016 respectively.