The Vice-President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has urged ECOWAS member states to address youth exclusion, unemployment and limited access to education as part of measures to prevent young people from being recruited by criminal and extremist groups across West Africa.
She said prolonged exclusion, the lack of educational opportunities, unemployment and limited prospects for decent livelihoods could create conditions that criminal and extremist groups might exploit to recruit frustrated young people.
“We must, therefore, create opportunities, strengthen communities, invest in education and skills as all of these amount to investing in peace,” she said.
Delivering the keynote address at the opening of the Second 2026 Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Accra yesterday, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said efforts to address insecurity in the sub-region must go beyond responding to its immediate manifestations, and instead tackle the underlying social, economic and environmental pressures that could fuel instability.
“Our response to insecurity must look beyond its immediate manifestations,” she said.
The Vice-President said ECOWAS already had important regional instruments covering free movement, disaster risk reduction, climate action and early warning systems, but stressed the need for their effective implementation.
“ECOWAS already has important instruments for free movement, disaster risk reduction, climate action and early warning.”
“The priority now is to ensure that these frameworks are fully implemented, properly resourced and are capable of delivering a timely regional response when pressures emerge,” she said.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang further linked the region’s security challenges to broader pressures arising from climate change, environmental degradation and population displacement, saying those challenges increasingly required coordinated regional responses.
The five-day extraordinary session is being held on the theme: “Climate Change as a Driver of Environmental Degradation, Population Displacement and Rising Insecurity in the ECOWAS Region”.
The session has brought together lawmakers and development partners from ECOWAS member states to deliberate on measures to address climate change and adaptation challenges, and to share experiences and best practices across the sub-region.
The discussions are expected to focus on strengthening regional resilience, improving early-warning and response mechanisms, supporting vulnerable communities and addressing the conditions that make populations susceptible to displacement, insecurity and violent extremism.
