Burkina Faso Ecowas Tender

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel UNOWAS Leonardo Santos Simo took part today in the 63rd Ordinary Summit of Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS held in Bissau.During his intervention the Special Representative reaffirmed the support of the United Nations to ECOWAS and called for concerted efforts at the national regional and international levels to address the many challenges facing West Africa.Insecurity remains a major concern for the stability of our sub-region. Terrorist attacks inter-communal violence and organized crime continue to have dire security and humanitarian consequences across the sub-region he said.While commending the special attention that ECOWAS pays to countries in transition Burkina Faso Guinea and Mali Mr. Lonardo Santos Simo noted that the situation in these countries illustrates the delicate link between good governance security and development and underlined the importance of taking into account the particularly difficult situations they face.Mr. Simo also noted the need to continue to work to improve the general human rights situation in the sub-region through equitable access to justice for all the protection of defenders of human rights and the adoption of legislative frameworks to combat sexual and gender-based violence. I welcome the excellent relations between ECOWAS and the United Nations and UNOWAS in particular and I pledge to work to strengthen this partnership with a view to achieving our common aspirations and objectives concluded Mr. Simo.