By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
The ECOWAS Commission has received the sum of $5 million from the World Bank to help facilitate the integrated unique identification of about 100 million people to enable them access critical services within the region.
The unique identification project which aligns with the ECOWAS vision 2025 is a West African Unique Regional Integration and Inclusion project, WURI, which targets over 100 million unregistered people within the region by 2028 who do not have proof of being members of the society to have access to critical services.
According to the ECOWAS Commission the identification of persons in member states is an important tool and is a key enabler for eradicating poverty and for achieving a broad range of development outcomes, the Commission said.
“The West African Unique Integration and Inclusion WURI project is a World Bank-financed project to enhance and implement a multiphase programme of increasing the number of persons in participating Member States who have government-recognised proof of unique identity that facilitates their access to services.”
The programme designed in two phases which gulps a combined sum of $ 399.1 million depends on ECOWAS Protocol of Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of establishment.
The identification of persons Phase 1 covers Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea which closed on 32st May 2018 and phase 2 covers Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Togo expected to close by 3rd July 2028.
The unique identification goals catchment include Economic Integration and Interconnectivity, Transformation and Inclusive and Sustainable Development and Social Inclusion particularly to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by 2030.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture to the West Africa Unique Identification for Regional Integration and Inclusion (WURI) Project Implementing Unit (PIU)l, Ms Massandje Toure-Litse on Monday met staff in Nigeria for the first time since she by the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in Accra, Ghana.
Ms Toure- Litse is to lead the newly created Commission for Economic Affairs and Agriculture, the Commission added.
