The Ministerial Meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was held at the weekend in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The ministers responsible for ECOWAS Affairs, Finance and Trade from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo met to assess the situation of the closure of land borders of Nigeria to goods, pursue the overall objective to reach an acceptable solution by all parties and propose actions for the rapid reopening of the land borders for the free movement of goods.

Communications Division of the ECOWAS Commission, in a statement, stated that Chairman of the Task Force on the Free Movement of Persons and Goods General Salou Djibo, in his remarks at the meeting, stressed that the meeting would arrive at a solution.

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President of the ECOWAS Commission H.E. Jean-Claude Kassi Brou highlighted the importance of free movement of people and goods as the glue and foundation of any regional integration process, saying this continues to be one of the major achievements of the ECOWAS integration process.

Brou stressed that free movement of people and goods is key to the realisation of the ECOWAS common market and the realisation of the vision of ‘ECOWAS of Peoples’, urging participants to maintain the spirit of solidarity and come up with a solution.

President of Burkina Faso and the Champion of Free Movement of ECOWAS Roch Marc Christian Kabore, whose speech was read by Paul Robert Tiendrebeogo, Minister of African Integration and Burkinabe Abroad, underscored the vision of the founding fathers of ECOWAS to make West Africa economically strong, fully integrated without barriers or borders.

After deliberations at the meeting, the ministers arrived at some recommendations, which they presented to Kabore at the Presidency in Ouagadougou.