Following growing challenges in its recruitment process, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission has established a special committee and engaged additional international recruitment firms to manage a high volume of applications for vacant positions across its institutions.
The move comes amid mounting staffing shortfalls caused by retirements and the recent exit of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso from the regional bloc.
Speaking at the opening of an Extraordinary Session of the Council on Recruitment for ECOWAS Institutions in Abuja on Thursday, ECOWAS Commission President, Omar Alieu Touray, said the Commission had struggled over the past three years to fill critical vacancies, largely due to staff regulations that limited administrative flexibility.
“It has become necessary to seek Council’s guidance to help us untangle the web,” Touray said. “We are grateful for the earlier waiver that shortened the advertisement period for job openings. While this enabled us to attract a large number of applicants, processing these applications and scheduling interviews has been slower than expected.”
According to him, the recruitment backlog has been worsened by an aging workforce, with an average of 13 staff retiring each year, and the manual handling of applications by firms initially engaged to manage the process.
“To address this, we have secured approval to hire more international recruitment firms to conduct an end-to-end exercise,” Touray stated. “We are also accelerating the rollout of an e-recruitment platform to fast-track applications.”
Touray added that the sudden departure of nationals from Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso had created additional vacancies, and called on the Council to ensure fair and merit-based redistribution of positions among remaining member states.
Council Chairperson, Musa T. Kabba said the meeting also reviewed the allocation of statutory positions, stressing that fairness, transparency, and inclusivity must guide the process.
“Our decisions must reflect equity and uphold the shared values of regional integration, peace, and democratic governance,” Kabba said.
Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, reaffirmed Nigeria’s support for ECOWAS reforms, urging members to prioritise regional solidarity over national interest.
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