The ECOWAS Commission, with the support of the EU-funded project “Support to Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa (FMM West Africa)”, is hosting an Experts Meeting on Identity Management and Civil Registry from 27-30 April, 2015, in Cotonou, Benin.
The Experts meeting will discuss the most recent development in the field of civil registry in ECOWAS region and propose common coordination modalities amongst Member States to ensure enhanced civil registration process supporting effective identity management. The Meeting will also deliver a Master Class on Identity Management to increase awareness by the Member States’ delegates of its core principles, especially in relation to the on-going ECOWAS National Biometric ID Card development initiative (a high-priority interest for the Heads of ECOWAS Member States).
The four-day event brings together relevant heads of agencies and high-level officials of ECOWAS Member States’ Immigration and Civil Registry services; ECOWAS Free Movement and Tourism Directorate officials; senior IOM and international identity management experts.
Migration has been widely recognized as key to the West Africa’s economic growth, social development and stability. To ensure the continuity of this trend, there is an imminent need to facilitate bona fide movement and restrict irregular border crossing, especially with intra-regional migration accounting for a large part of West Africa’s cross-border movements. Improving coordinated civil registry data management and supporting effective identity management will directly contribute to addressing both the opportunities and challenges arising from intra-regional mobility. As a concrete measure to facilitate and better manage free movement of persons in West Africa, the ECOWAS National Biometric ID Card will be developed in place of the ECOWAS Travel Certificate. The Experts meeting will contribute to the further definition of the follow-up to the ID Card’s roll-out.
IOM is supporting this week’s ECOWAS Experts Meeting within the framework of the FMM West Africa’s. “As part of the project, an expert assessment on the status of ECOWAS National Biometric Identity Card has been conducted in 2014 and, and building on its recommendations, the provision of this high-level Identity Management Master Class is another effort of the project to support travel document harmonization and associated enhanced identity management in the ECOWAS region”, says Ms Carmela Godeau, IOM Regional Director for West and Central Africa.