West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) Programme’s 16th Coordination Committee Meeting to be Held in Dakar, Senegal

The ECOWAS Commission and the World Bank, in collaboration with the governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Togo, are pleased to announce the 16th Coordination Committee Meeting of the West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) Programme. The meeting is scheduled to take place in Dakar, Senegal, on Wednesday, 23rd October 2024.

The WURI Programme, funded by the World Bank seeks to increase the number of people in participating countries who have government-recognized proof of identity that facilitates their access to service within and across the participating countries. The programme is structured into three main components: (i) strengthening legal and institutional frameworks for foundational identification systems (fID systems), (ii) establishing reliable fID systems, and (iii) enabling access to services through fID credentials.

The 16th meeting of the Coordination Committee will deliberate on the development of the Community Act on Electronic Identification and Service Accessibility within ECOWAS; review the progress in programme implementation since the last meeting; and discuss the priorities for the fourth quarter of 2024.

The outcomes of the meeting are expected to further drive cross-border interoperability of identification systems in West Africa, supporting the long-term goal of regional integration through mutual recognition of identity credentials.

Participants will include WURI Project Coordinators from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Niger, and Togo, Project Implementation Unit members of the ECOWAS Commission and representatives of the World Bank.

As part of the institutional and coordination arrangement, the WURI Governance Framework was instituted in April 2023. This Framework consists of three (3) Committees, the Supervisory Committee, the Coordination Committee and the Technical Committee.

The Coordination Committee is composed of the heads of the project management team at each country’s level and is responsible for facilitating the operational steering and harmonisation of the common objective of the programme.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).