The peace process initiated by ECOWAS in some potentially volatile areas in the sub-region seems to have yielded positive results with elections scheduled to be held in Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry and Cote d'Ivoire. Elections in Guinea Bissau are expected to be held next week, while Guinea Conakry and Cote d'Ivoire will hold theirs later in the year. In order to ensure the success of the forthcoming elections in Guinea Bissau, ECOWAS has decided to meet shortfalls in funding for the security needs of the elections and also pay three months salary arrear' for the country Armed Forces. The Chairman of ECOWAS, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar' Adua, made this known when he opened the 36th Ordinary Summit of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of Government Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, yesterday. President John Evans Atta Mills joined his colleague Heads of State at the one-day meeting. Alhaji Yar' Adua said the ECOWAS Commission in the past few months dispatched high-powered delegations to help mediate the crises in those countries. He said Africa could not meaningfully anticipate sustainable development without first entrenching peace stability and security across the region and urged the member nations to continue to drive the peace process in Guinea Conakry and Guinea Bissau. Alhaji Yar' Adua, who is also the President of Nigeria, further stressed the need for member nations to redirect their resources to into building regional infrastructure that would enhance trade and drive development member nations to redirect their resources into building regional infrastrucute that would enhance trade and drive development. He recalled a financial pledge by the last meeting of G20 in London towards infrastructural development in the world's emerging and developing countries and expressed the hope that work would commence towards mobilising the requisite experts to come up with feasibility studies that would enable beneficiary countries to access the fund. President Yar' Adua said under his chairmanship the focus would remain on the imperatives of socio-political and economic stability and meaningful integration. He expressed concern over the fact that 30 years after the signing of the Pro-tocol on the Free Movement of Goods and Services, the sub-region had not been able to remove the bottlenecks at the borders which continued to encumber effective economic integration. "The reality of the global economic situation today makes it critical for us to recommit to invest the relevant protocols with the requisite political will," he said. The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr Mohammed lbn Chambas said the general nature of the pressure from the outside world and the weakness of the economies required the strengthening of the regional integration process. He said in order to reverse those negative trends imposed on the economies of the sub-region member states must improve their production capacities and become less dependent on proceeds from the export of unprocessed agricultural and minerals resources. That, he said, was the best way to create employment, improve economic growth and get integrated into the global economy to effectively combat poverty. “But this can be achieved only through a considerable increase in investment in vital sectors of the economy as the basis for growth and development," he added. He said the progress made in the restoration of peace in conflict countries and the installation of democracy in many countries asked being compromised by the resurgence of coups d' etat, political violence and the drug menace in some countries. He said in the quest for a united integrated and developed Africa, the African Union had sent a strong signal concerning the achievement of the integration of the continent with the proposed regrouping of the three east and southern African regional organisations, namely, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) the Southern African Development Community (SADEC) and the East African Community (EAC), into one single free trade area (FTA). Earlier, the countries of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMI) rededicated themselves to the ECOWAS Monetary Convergence Programme by pledging to step up their efforts to achieve the criteria and other benchmarks in the new road map adopted. Source: Daily Graphic