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Regional integration within ECOWAS is
anchored on a two-pronged strategy: achieving a single
regional market, and serving as a development tool towards
the achievement of economic and monetary integration,
development of infrastructure, promotion of peace and
stability, and ensuring continuous improvement of the
standard of living of the citizens.
The achievement of the Community goals is to
be greatly enhanced through the design, analysis,
implementation and evaluation of integration programmes
based on rigorous research backed by accurate, up-to-date
and sufficient data. While research informs policy making,
statistics serves as an input into the research process;
good research is based on a rich set of accurate, adequate,
relevant and current data. Research and statistics are
important pillars on which the integration and development
programmes should stand as ECOWAS seeks to accelerate the
pace of the regional integration process in this competitive
and best-practices era of globalization.
The Department of Research and Statistics is
expected to serve as the economic policy design and analysis
centre of the ECOWAS Commission. In effect, the Department
will strive to be the foremost think-tank for the ECOWAS
Commission on integration and development issues in order to
realize the ECOWAS vision of West Africa becoming the most
outstanding regional economic community within the
African-Caribbean-Pacific bloc.
The focus of the Department is research and
statistics, which form its two pillars. While the Research
pillar is responsible for providing technical expertise in
the design, analysis and management of development issues,
including cross-cutting issues, the Statistics pillar
ensures the development, up-dating and use of statistics
relevant to the ECOWAS regional integration and development
processes. |
