Board of Governors of EBID; Officials of ECOWAS Commission; Board of Directors; Senior Management of EBID; Bilateral and Multilateral partners; Sister ECOWAS institutions and Agencies; Members of the Press; Directors of EBID; Staff of EBID; Distinguished Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen.<\/p>\n
It is indeed a pleasure and an honour to meet on this platform to discuss something out of the ordinary so far as our regular engagements are concerned. We are here to launch the maiden editions of two (2) of the Bank\u2019s knowledge products that are aimed at enhancing the socio-economic discourse of the sub-region, inform and bring value to our Member States, namely the \u201cWest African Development Outlook\u201d (an annual development report and forecast based on West Africa) and the \u201cRENDEZ-VOUS\u201d (a quarterly Newsletter of the Bank).<\/p>\n
Distinguished Governors, when I assumed office in February 2020, one of the objectives I set my sights on was to make the Bank visible and relevant in our sub-region. Apart from doing what we do as a Development Finance Institution (DFI), I thought it was necessary for the Bank to position itself as an institution of knowledge, one that is abreast with the socio-economic challenges of our sub-region, playing a frontal role in these discussions and helping (in concert with Member States) to resolve them.<\/p>\n
Ladies and Gentlemen, this explains why the Bank\u2019s Strategy 2025 (the Strategic Plan for 2021-2025) aims to \u201cRebrand EBID as a knowledge Institution, in addition to its known role as project financier\u201d. Specifically, Strategy 2025 outlines an annual publication of a socio-economic report and publications on traditional and digital communication platforms covering topical issues affecting Member States, beginning in 2021, as part of the Bank\u2019s visibility strategy.<\/p>\n
Partners of EBID, it is therefore, heart-warming that we have gathered \u2018virtually\u2019 today to launch the maiden editions of the West African Development Outlook<\/strong> (WADO)<\/strong> and the RENDEZ-VOUS<\/strong>. The WADO which is an annual publication of socio-economic indicators in the sub-region, it reports on the performance and outlook at the country level and as well as the sub-regional level, with recommendations on how we can navigate some of the development challenges of our sub-region in the short -to -medium-term.<\/p>\n The RENDEZ-VOUS, on the other hand is a quarterly (print and online) Newsletter of the Bank. It aims to bring visibility to the Bank by providing relevant and valuable information about the Bank\u2019s activities, and a platform for the sharing development content to engage stakeholders.<\/p>\n As has been said already, the 2021 WADO is made up of four sections: performance and prospects, policy options, country briefs and a statistical appendix. The RENDEZ-VOUS is structured into news and events, quarterly focus, an opinion segment, and diverse content relating to our partners.<\/p>\n Chers amis sur cette plate-forme virtuelle, permettez-moi \u00e0 ce stade de f\u00e9liciter les \u00e9quipes et les contributeurs qui ont r\u00e9uni ces deux publications, et de remercier la haute direction et le personnel de la BIDC pour leur soutien ind\u00e9fectible dans la mise en \u0153uvre des initiatives inscrites dans le plan strat\u00e9gique de la Banque au titre de la p\u00e9riode 2021 – 2025. (Friends on this virtual platform, let me at this juncture commend the teams and contributors that put these two publications together and thank Management and Staff of EBID for their unflinching support in the delivery of the Strategy 2025 initiatives.)<\/p>\n Kofi Annan, a former UN Secretary General, once said, and I quote, \u201cknowledge is power, information is liberating, education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0As we delve into these two publications, may we be empowered, liberated, and educated to partner EBID to transform ECOWAS communities.<\/p>\n On this note, it is my singular honour to declare the 2021 WADO and edition 1 of the RENDEZ-VOUS duly launched<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Board of Governors of EBID; Officials of ECOWAS Commission; Board of Directors; Senior Management of EBID; Bilateral and Multilateral partners; Sister ECOWAS institutions and Agencies; Members of the Press; Directors of EBID; Staff of EBID; Distinguished Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen. It is indeed a pleasure and an honour to meet on this platform to discuss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[167],"class_list":["post-275782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-newsletter-of-the-bank"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/wado.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275783,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275782\/revisions\/275783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bidc-ebid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}