IGAD Draft Treaty and new Organisational Structure Progress towards Council of Ministers

22-01-2017, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Secretariat presented to the IGAD Committee of Ambassadors the IGAD draft Treaty, the proposed IGAD organizational structure, the IGAD Budget previsions 2017, and the IGAD Operation Plan 2017 during a half a day meeting held in Addis Ababa yesterday.

The objective of this Committee of Ambassadors Meeting, whose agenda was focused on the above mentioned topics solely, was to review the proposed documents that had been reviewed by the Focal Points at Member States Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Finance along with IGAD Staff and leadership during a panel of Experts meeting held in Djibouti on November 14th, 15th, and 16th last year.

The Executive Secretary of IGAD, HE Amb (Eng) Mahboub Maalim, informed the Committee members of the importance of such topics for the organization to do better. “I know you have had the time to go through these documents, Your Excellencies, and that it will be easy for you to point out to areas which need improvements before these documents are submitted to our next Council of Ministers”, he said.

The Ambassador of Ethiopia to Djibouti and Chair of the Committee of Ambassadors noticed that progress was registered since the last meeting of Experts on the subject matter. He also highlighted that Ambassadors will still have a thorough look at the documents during the meeting and have their inputs.

He called on the next Committee of Ambassadors to be given the opportunity to assess the organisation’s achievements and performance in order to recommend improvements.

The Committee of Ambassadors was then successively briefed on the four items of the agenda and given the opportunity to comment. A presentation was also done on the newly established IGAD Centre of Excellence to Counter Violent Extremism in Djibouti.

The Secretariat will forward amended documents taking into consideration the Committee of Ambassadors comments and observations to the next Council of Ministers for endorsement.###