ECOWAS Youth, Sports Development Centre solicits media support

Accra, Ghana (PANA) - The ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre (YSDC) says it needs the sustained support of all stakeholders, especially the media, to deliver on its mandate of using sports and youth empowerment as tools to foster regional integration.

The Centre’s Director, Mr. Francis Njoaguani, made the assertion in Accra, the Ghanaian capital,
Tuesday.

Welcoming participants to a one-day Sensitization Workshop for journalists on the sidelines of the ongoing 2nd ECOWAS Games, the director underscored the important role of the media in the actualization of the mission and objectives of the Centre, which was created by regional leaders through a decision at their 28th Ordinary Session in Accra on 13th January 2005.

Mr. Njoaguani explained that the Centre sought to maximize the opportunity provided by the biennial regional Games to apprise journalists in the region with the activities and programmes of the Centre, a specialised ECOWAS agency based in Ouagadougou, the Burkinabe capital.

This is with the hope of making the media a willing advocate of the Centre, in particular and ECOWAS in general, he said.

The ECOWAS Commission said in a statement that in one of the presentations at the workshop, the ECOWAS Acting Director of Communication, Mr. Sunny Ugoh, took participants through the architecture of the ECOWAS institutions, their functions, progammes and activities, as well as achievements and challenges, and important milestones in the organization's 37 years of existence.

He highlighted key innovations that have accompanied the Revised Treaty of 1993, including the establishment of the Community Court of Justice and ECOWAS Parliament, institution of self-financing budgets for Community Institutions, and the introduction of the Community Levy now used to finance about 80% of the Community programmes.

Others are the benefits of the organization’s flagship free movement protocol, especially the abolition of visas by Member States, thereby making ECOWAS the only region with free-visa regime in Africa, as well as measured progress on the ECOWAS Passport and the Common Market programmes.

The journalists commended the YSDC for the workshop and suggested the formation of a regional network of sports journalists and the need to be kept updated on the activities of the Centre and ECOWAS as a whole.
-0- PANA SEG 20June2012