ECOWAS MOVES TO FORESTALL DRUG ABUSE IN WEST AFRICAN SUB-REGION.

By Ferdinand Olise

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, Commission has begun the process of digitalising the West African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use, WENDU, system to serve as a centralised system for data input by countries to make it easier for them to submit their WENDU data.

The Commissioner, Human Development and Social Affairs, ECOWAS Commission, Professor Fatou Sarr, stated this in Abuja in his opening statement at the Regional Capacity Building of the West African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use, and Validation of the WENDU Data by Member States

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS has continued to make remarkable and lasting impacts in the lives of people and communities across West Africa and beyond.

As it marks its 50th anniversary, the ECOWAS Commission is finalising a documentary on drug prevention and control in West Africa, as part of it celebration.

To this end, experts and focal persons from across the West African region, converged in Abuja for the
Regional Capacity Building of the West African Epidemiology Network on Drug Use, and Validation of the WENDU Data by Member States, with the aim of acquainting them with activities in their member states where it relates to drug use disorders, drug abuse, and illicit drug trafficking, as well as go through the data gathered by Member States to ensure they are accurate, and represent, and then validate all the data, put them together and publish.

In his opening statement, the Commissioner, Human Development and Social Affairs, ECOWAS Commission, Professor Fatou Sarr, whose statement was read by the Head of the ECOWAS Drug Prevention and Control, Dr. Daniel Amankwa, said, “ECOWAS is committed to strengthening regional cooperation in combating drug abuse and its associated consequences, contributing to improve public health and security across West Africa”.

Professor Sarr appreciated the work that various resource persons and the ECOWAS staff have done so far to ensure that the reports are prepared, validated, and published.

“For about nine years the WENDU project has been running successfully, and this success is largely because you the WENDU focal points have been up and doing in gathering the relevant drug data from your respective countries.

We also appreciate the work that our various resource persons and the ECOWAS staff to ensure that the reports are prepared validated and published. It is heartwarming that as the years go by, the WENDU reports keep on improving”

“So it is gratifying to note that, ECOWAS Commission has not only sustained the WENDU project, but keeps on improving upon it year after year in terms of the quality and the relevance of it”, he said.

“ECOWAS has commenced the process of developing a comprehensive digital platform. The platform is envisioned to be a robust, secure and user-friendly system that caters for the diverse needs of its users”.

While Dr Daniel Amankwa, highlighted that they have increased data coverage in member states to ensure credibility, highlighted that many people are having drug use disorders, with few places to get help, promoting them to start helping by building rehabilitation centers.

“What we do is that we have focal points, two each in every member state, and they will
collect the data, and then transmit the data to the ECOWAS commission, and then we collect them, and we validate.

We have the data for 2014 to 2017.
We have the data for 2018 to 2019.
We have data for 2020 to 2022.
We have the data for 2023.
And now we are going to have the data for 2024.
In fact, anybody who googles, WENDU report, it will pop up.
And the aim is that we want to know what is happening in our member states when it comes
to drug use disorders, drug abuse, illicit drug trafficking, and all that stuff.”, He said.

“We have increased our coverage in our member states, and now we have data that is quite representative and when they bring it together here too we have the resource persons, they will compile and then we will sit down and look at it again and see whether they are accurate, and the member States to confirm, so the accuracy, the reliability, and the credibility of the data has been one of the issues and we try to make sure that these data are something we can rely on”, he added

Also, the Director, Narcotics and Drug Abuse, Federal Ministry of Health Abuja, Mrs Henrietta Bakura-Onyeneke, stakeholders interested in this harm reduction, emphasized the importance of educating young people against drug abuse, stressing the need to make available some form of measures to uplift their livelihoods such as skills acquisition as some of them are without jobs.

She said, “WENDU a platform saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the drug use patterns
in the different West African states are collected, they are well collated, they are analyzed in terms of how many people are down with drug abuse, how many facilities are available in terms of rehabilitation to help those that are coming forth to say they want to stop that, as well as capturing the different social vices that comes with that stage.
And the aim is that when we have these reports and they come in timely and they are well collated and analyzed, it will be a very good window for policymakers to say, OK, based on evidence, we have so, so, so number of people, people that are on drugs, and so, so, number of rehabilitation centers.and then it also helps policymakers to be able to appropriate, maybe finance, some resources, reach out to philanthropists and make sure that these rehabilitation centers are increased to meet the number”.

On his part the Head of Operations NDLEA Sierra Leone, Mr Ibrahim Kargbo, said they have been making frantic efforts to reach out to young people, noting that In 2019, ECOWAS came up with a school project where they reached out to schools in almost the whole of the country to see how best they can inform the youth on the dangers of substance abuse.He added that the focus or the target is young people as they are the most vulnerable.

“We’ve been making frantic efforts to reach out to young people. In 2019, ECOWAS came up with a school project. We reached out to schools in almost the whole of the country to see how best we can inform our youth on the dangers of substance abuse.
At community level, we are also reaching out to communities to reach out to them so that they understand the harmful effects of these substances that people are using so that they stay away from it, most of our young people.
The focus or the target is young people because they are the ones that are most vulnerable.”, he said.

The stakeholders agreed that the data gathered from each member state,when validated will help to deal with each region adequately and bridge the gap of illicit drugs and drugs abuse in the West African region.