In 2005, ECOWAS adopted the regional agricultural policy, ECOWAP, after two years of negotiations with Member states and socio-professional stakeholders. ECOWAP became the political framework used to guide the transformations of the agro-sylvo-pastoral and fishing sector in the region, and manifest for West Africa the continental orientations of the agricultural component of NEPAD, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP).

To enhance effective implementation of the ECOWAP, the ECOWAP M&E system was endorsed as a coordination tool for stakeholders to promote efficient and coherent action, and thus avoid duplication of efforts in the sub-region. This system is mainly guided by the ECOWAP/CAADP Results Framework.

The main objective of the ECOWAP M&E is to enhance data management and to report on aggregated results of the overall performance of the ECOWAP/CAADP framework to the Advisory Committee for Agriculture. While much effort has been done in the past, so far, most of the work was done manually and management of information started becoming complex.

In this context, ECOWAS took the initiative to develop an ECOWAP web-based M&E data management system, with the financial support of USAID and the European Union. This system has been designed to ensure the generation, storage and sharing of West Africa-owned data and knowledge towards agricultural transformation, from specific content and data provided by the 15 Member States as well as Contributors to ECOWAP. The system has several specific web portals, such as a programme & project matrix, an E-library and RAIP/NAIP web windows, all interconnected to facilitate knowledge management. The entire web system goes towards enhancing systematic data collection, collation, analysis and reporting based on agreed indicators emanating from the ECOWAP/CAADP Results Framework and M&E Mechanism for informed decision-making. All these put together will contribute to enhanced documentation and communication of results on the ECOWAP implementation in a coordinated and timely manner.

The ECOWAP Monitoring & Evaluation web platform is available at the following address: : https://ecowap.ecowas.int/.