ECOWAS CONVENES KEY WORKSHOP TO VALIDATE ECOLINK MANUAL OF PROCEDURES, STRENGTHENING GOVERNANCE AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has officially convened a vital technical workshop in Lagos on the ECOLink Manual of Procedure from the 8th to 12th June 2026. Participants at the Lagos workshop, which included Directors and Principal Program Officers reviewed, harmonized, and validated the ECOLink Manual of Procedures (MoP). The workshop was officially opened by the Director of Financial Reporting and Grants and ECOLink Director, Mr. Ahmadou Oury Balde, who welcomed participants and emphasized the manual’s role as a cornerstone governance document for ECOWAS.

ECOLink is an innovative, SAP-based Integrated Management System designed to automate and unify ECOWAS’s core administrative, financial, procurement, human resource, travel, and inventory workflows. The Manual of Procedures serves as the critical operational bridge, translating complex ECOWAS financial regulations and institutional policies into standardized, day-to-day digital workflows.

During the workshop, technical experts, and institutional users audited and documented processes against actual operational realities in a bid to eliminate structural bottlenecks, thereby enforcing strict internal controls—such as segregation of duties and approval hierarchies—and ensuring full compliance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).

By actively engaging stakeholders from various ECOWAS Institutions, Agencies, and Offices, the workshop intends to achieve the following; the establishment of a singular, consensus-backed operational reference point. The workshop also harmonized business processes across all ECOWAS bodies in a bid to eliminate duplication of effort, improve the accuracy and reliability of system-wide data for superior management reporting and decision-making, as well as fostering collective commitment to institutional change management.