“In West Africa, as in many other regions of the world, issues relating to substance abuse remain complex and constantly evolving.”

This was the observation made by the Commissioner for Human Development and Social Affairs of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Prof. Fatou Sow Sarr, on Tuesday 11 August 2026, in Lagos, Nigeria, at the opening of the capacity building workshop organised by the Nigerian Network for Epidemiology on Drug Use (NENDU).

According to Ms Fatou Sow Sarr, represented by the Head of the Commission’s Drug Prevention and Control Division, Dr Daniel Amankwaah, this complex and ever changing nature requires continuous monitoring of emerging trends to enable the adoption of appropriate measures.

Dr Daniel Amankwaah called on ECOWAS Member States to establish a system to monitor the scale, characteristics and trends of drug supply and demand, as well as national and regional responses to the situation.

He also emphasised the need for coordinated collaboration between the health and law enforcement sectors, with a public health focused approach. This, he said, would enable the establishment of national mechanisms capable of both assessing local specificities and clearly defining the types of responses required to tackle the issue of drug use in a comprehensive manner, by addressing both supply and demand.

“To tackle the drug problem comprehensively, it is essential to have reliable and up to date data to guide evidence based policies and programmes; without this, our interventions risk remaining purely reactive rather than proactive,” said Dr Daniel Amankwaah.

He recalled the establishment, by the ECOWAS Commission in 2013, of the West African Network for Drug Use Epidemiology (WENDU). This network, he emphasised, serves as a regional mechanism for the collection, analysis and dissemination of data on drug use and related issues in the member states of the regional organisation.

Alongside WENDU’s operations at regional level, it should be noted that each of these states has its own local drug use epidemiology network. In Nigeria, this is the Nigerian Network for Drug Use Epidemiology (NENDU), established to improve the collection, analysis and reporting of data.

This three (3) days workshop has been organised for NENDU focal points, professionals from Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and other key stakeholders responsible for collecting data on drugs, representing all of Nigeria’s geopolitical zones.

Its main objective is to strengthen the technical capacities of participants, in order to ensure they produce high quality reports on drug use; these reports support the development of evidence based policies and interventions for drug prevention and control in ECOWAS member states.

Between 2014 and 2024, the ECOWAS Commission published five WENDU reports, and the 2025 report  which has already been validated by the focal points of the regional organisation’s member states will be finalised shortly.

“The ECOWAS Commission attaches great importance to the reliability of drug data in the region; it will support its member states so that they can provide high quality data, which will form the basis of the annual regional report. The WENDU report is also published globally,” said Dr Daniel Amankwaah.

He reaffirmed the Commission’s commitment to continuing to do everything in its power to help ECOWAS Member States fulfil their role effectively in the fight against the scourge of drugs. “By joining forces, we will succeed,” he concluded.

For her part, Dr Amina Z. Kazaure, Director of the Hospital Services Department at Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, expressed her gratitude to the ECOWAS Commission for its ongoing partnership and support aimed at strengthening prevention, treatment and rehabilitation in relation to drug use in her country and across the rest of the ECOWAS region.

As for the Director of the Narcotics and Drug Abuse Division at the same ministry, Ms Henrietta Bakura-Onyeneke, she urged participants to identify common challenges relating to reporting and to jointly develop practical solutions and action plans to improve NENDU reporting.

“We must move beyond the mere collection of data, which is often seen as a routine reporting obligation, and recognise it as an essential public health function, facilitating the early identification of emerging trends, the prioritisation of resources and the development of evidence-based interventions,” she recommended.

It should be noted that during the workshop, participants watched a video on the social, health and economic consequences of drug use in the ECOWAS region.