Context
In 2005, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) adopted the Economic Community of West Africa Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP) which is based on three axes:
- Increasing the productivity and competitiveness of West African agriculture;
- Implementing a trade regime within West Africa; and
- Adapting the trade regime vis-à-vis countries outside the region.
A Monitoring & Evaluation System
The establishment of the Regional Agency for Agriculture and Food (RAAF) is part of the process of making the Agricultural Policy of the Economic Community of West African States ECOWAP/CAADP operational.
MESECOPS is the System that RAAF has developed to ensure an efficient Monitoring and Evaluation of all programs implemented under its umbrella and it is expected to contribute to the overall ECOWAP monitoring and evaluation system of the Directorate of Agriculture and Rural Development, under the Department of Agriculture, Environment & Water Resources.
The Logframe of each Project is encoded into MESECOPS and the indicators to be used for evaluating the degree of achievement of each result are clearly identified.
Project indicators are then matched against ECOWAP result indicators and reported at higher level.
Current Situation
ECOWAS is supporting in West-Africa the implementation of projects at Regional, National and local levels to improve food security, reduce poverty and to increase population resilience to climate changes. (See ECOWAP expected resuts)
Currently, ARAA is monitoring 127 active projects for a total investment of 271,276,347 US$ out of which 97% is the contribution of ECOWAS financial partners.