The ECOWAS Gender Development Centre allocated $1.96 million to eight member countries of the Economic Community of West African States to address fistula disorder. Fistula disorder involves abnormal connections between organs, often resulting from injury or surgical procedures.
In 2021, the United States Agency for International Development reported that Nigeria accounted for 40% of global fistula cases. Additionally, Nigeria registers approximately 13,000 new cases of fistula annually, with up to 400,000 women waiting for corrective surgery.
Each of the beneficiary countries, including Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Guinea Bissau, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Gambia, and Liberia, received $245,000. The cheque presentation was a key feature of the 91st Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers held in Abuja.
During the event, Yusuf Tuggar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, highlighted the Council’s agenda to discuss the community’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year. He emphasized that the current economic challenges are impacting the region’s Gross Domestic Product and revenue generation.
Tuggar noted, “We must be mindful of the prevailing economic and financial challenges confronting our sub-region, such as inflation, high food prices, and currency devaluation, which have adversely affected our economies.
“These challenges have impacted our gross domestic product, revenue generation, and in particular our mobilisation of the community levy, due to the devaluation of some of our major currencies, particularly Cedi and Naira against the US Dollar.”
Urging the Council Ministers, the minister said, “Therefore, we must support the recommendations of the Administration and Finance Committee on enhancing prudence, as well as the efforts of the President of the Commission and other Heads of the Institutions on blocking leakages to ensure judicious use of our meagre resources.”
Also, the President, ECOWAS Commission, Omar Touray, lamented that member states under sanctions have stopped remitting levies, adding that ECOWAS needs enough financial resources to tackle the challenges bedeviling the region.
“For some time now, the levy collection has been a challenge. The amount of 0.5 per cent ECOWAS levy on imports from outside the Community has been collected by member states on behalf of ECOWAS.
“However, the deposit of these funds into the ECOWAS bank accounts at the country level and access to the funds have been a challenge. This has led to low resource mobilization.
“The situation is more critical now that our member states under sanctions have stopped remitting the levy. As the financial situation gets more difficult, the tasks for ECOWAS are growing,” Touray stated.
The president urged the councils of ministers to “mobilise the levy fully to be able to implement our community work programme and keep up with the successes of ECOWAS.”
