Finance Ministers from the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS are converging on Monrovia for the convening of the 12th Ordinary Meeting of the Board of Governors of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development.
The EBID, formerly the EOCWAS fund was established by the Authority of Head of States of ECOWAS in 1979 as a leading regional investment and development finance bank for West Africa to foster infrastructure, trade, technology and social service development through low interest lending capital.
Convened for the first time in Liberia, the meeting is expected to review the Bank’s activities over the last four years and to chart a new strategic direction for coming years. Delegates would assess and discuss the Bank’s resource mobilization position, particularly its funding portfolio and the need for capital injection by member states. The discussions would also review operational and policy issues, ranging from loan approvals, commitments currently financed and the status of commitments from member countries.
The meeting comes when Liberia, through its Minister of Finance, Amara Konneh is expected to assume the Chairmanship of the EBID Board of Governors for the first time.
The EIBD was founded to help leverage lending capital within the ECOWAS zone and support member states carry out development projects aimed at alleviating poverty and driving economic growth and the development.
Background
The ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), the financial arm of ECOWAS is an international finance Institution established by the fifteen member States of ECOWAS which include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Its headquarters is in Lomé, Togo.
It emerged following the transformation, in 1999, of the former ECOWAS Fund for Cooperation, Compensation and Development (created at the same time with ECOWAS and became operational in 1979).
EBID, as a bank became operational on 1st January 2004 like a holding with two subsidiaries. Since January, 2007, it was reorganized into single organization with two windows, one for the promotion of the private sector and the other, for the development of the public sector.
