ECOWAS COMMISSION AND AFRICAN UNION CONCLUDE ASRII DIGITAL PLATFORM TRAINING WITH HIGH-LEVEL ENGAGEMENT WITH THE SECRETARY GENERAL

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission concluded a four-day capacity-building training on the African Regional Integration Synthesized Index (ASRII) Digital Platform, culminating in a high-level briefing with the Secretary General of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Muazu Umaru, at the Commission’s Headquarters in Abuja on the 7^th of August, 2026

The four-day intensive workshop, which ran from 4^th to 7^th of August 2026, brought together 20 core participants across various Directorates and Departments of the ECOWAS Commission alongside African Union (AU) delegates and technical consultants, including Mr. Levodo Ngah Yannick and Mr. Menounga Guy Charly. The initiative forms part of the AU Commission’s continental agenda supported by UNECA and AfDB to modernize and harmonize the tracking of regional integration across four strategic pillars: Political, Economic, Infrastructure, and Human & Social Integration.

Briefing the Secretary General on the sidelines of the meeting on behalf of the Acting Director of Research and Statistics, Mr. Gbenga Erin, Programme Officer for Data Management, highlighted the highly participatory nature of the training. He emphasized that the Directorate of Research and Statistics serves as the principal focal point for the ASRII platform within ECOWAS, coordinating other directorates to leverage the Commission’s already existing Strategic Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation structure to ensure timely data reporting, quality control and validation.

During the briefing, AU consultants demonstrated how ECOWAS will utilize the platform to evaluate Member States’ policy implementation and track commitments across sectors. In response, Secretary General Umaru stressed the necessity of building a centralized database detailing the status, amendments, and implications of all regional legal protocols.

Emphasizing the vital link between empirical data and sustainable regional growth, the Secretary General of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Muazu Umaru, noted:

“Data enthusiasm across Africa has historically been low because we haven’t consistently allowed data to drive our development decisions. ECOWAS has accomplished a great deal, but we must back our progress with concrete evidence. We need to transition this vision into a comprehensive blueprint and implementation plan for regional data management.”

Mr. Umaru commended the joint technical team and pledged to convey the meeting’s outcomes and recommendations to the new executive management to secure full institutional backing. He called for a tailored, comprehensive data management blueprint, customized analytical tools, and continuous capacity building to accelerate an integrated, evidence-driven, and people-centered ECOWAS.