Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) concludes Capacity Building Workshop on Monitoring & Evaluation and Financial Reporting of Humanitarian Interventions in Member States

The Humanitarian and Social Affairs Directorate of the ECOWAS Commission, which is committed to improving its standards of implementation of humanitarian programmes in the West African region, recognises the indispensable role of robust Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and financial mechanisms to assess the impact of its programmes and interventions.

Accordingly, it has developed models and tools to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of ECOWAS humanitarian programmes by its Member State Institutions, through well-structured M&E and financial systems.

To enable its focal points in the Member States involved in implementing ECOWAS humanitarian programmes to better master these tools, the Humanitarian and Social Affairs Directorate of the ECOWAS Commission organised a 3-day capacity-building workshop from 5 to 7 November 24 in Niger State, Nigeria.

This interactive workshop, based on active participation and knowledge sharing between participants, covered a comprehensive programme that addressed all aspects of the monitoring and evaluation system, including data collection, analysis, reporting and integration into existing national systems.

At the end of this training workshop, participants made recommendations including those relating to the areas of programme intervention that ECOWAS should prioritise, namely (i) Cash intervention&Voucher assistance (CVA) in line with humanitarian principles; (ii) Livelihood support; (iii) Food and non-food intervention, (iv) Intervention in the provision of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) kits.

For the benefit of Member States, it has been recommended that a minimum of 85% of funds be allocated to the basic needs of the affected population. In addition, Member States are requested to complete and submit their financial and M&E reports to the ECOWAS Commission of the Floods and Food Nutrition Project (2023) before the close of the ECOWAS accounting year 2024.

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