ECOWAS appoints Buhari as Covid-19 response coordinator

The ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government held an extraordinary session via videoconference on 23 April to discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the sub-region. The meeting notably resulted in the appointment of Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari as the organisation’s COVID-19 response coordinator.

In a first, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held one of its summits via videoconference, on the initiative of Mahamadou Issoufou, the current chair of the West African organisation. On Thursday, 23 April, Niger’s head of state conversed in front of his computer screen with his sub-region counterparts on the topic of developments and impacts related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ecowas

The presidents who took part in the call included Benin’s Patrice Talon, Burkina Faso’s Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, Cabo Verde’s Jorge Carlos Fonseca, Côte d’Ivoire’s Alassane Ouattara, Gambia’s Adama Barrow, Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo, Guinea’s Alpha Condé, Guinea-Bissau’s Umaro Sissoco Embalo (officially recognised during the summit), Liberia’s George Weah, Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, Senegal’s Macky Sall, Sierra Leone’s Julius Maada Bio and Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé.

A number of West African diplomats also participated in the meeting: Côte d’Ivoire’s Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, President of the ECOWAS Commission, Chad’s Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC) and Ghana’s Mohamed Ibn Chambas, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel.

Economy-centred discussion

Although the heads of state said that they were “deeply concerned” about the spread of COVID-19 in the region (with 158 deaths and more than 6,000 cases as of 22 April), much of their discussion was focused on the “serious threat posed to the regional [economic] integration process.”

According to the West African organisation, the economic growth rate for the ECOWAS region, initially forecast at 3.3%, is expected to fall to around 2% “if the pandemic were to end in June 2020.”