The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, has said that capacity deficits remain a major challenge facing West African countries in their quest for sustainable development.
According to him, “those deficits continue to inhibit efforts in implementing their development strategies and policies in achieving their desired development outcomes”.

He made the disclosure at a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management, WAIFEM, as a capacity building institution of Francophone Express countries in Lagos, with the theme: Building capacity and good governance for regional integration.

The governor who was represented by the deputy governor of the CBN, Mrs Sarah Alade, added that the weak capacity in its various dimensions is still a problem of the continent.

Emefiele alluded to the fact that with the strategy in the global economy, there’s the need for improved legal framework, fiscal sustainability and knowledge required for policy formulation. In this regard he added that it became imperative that countries build strong credible institutions and develop capacity for sustainable economic growth.

This however gave rise to the establishment of various capacity building institutions ( IMF institute,  World Bank Institute and our own WAIFEM, founded by the Central Banks of 5 English speaking West African countries (Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Nigeria).

“Beyond the general economic disharmonies characterising economic management in the sub-region, there were many visible technical and capacity deficit supporting the idea establishing WAIFEM as a sub-regional institution dedicated to the provision of short term professional training in specialised areas of macro-economic, debt and financial management as is relevant within the sub region.”

“As we mark 20 years of the establishment of WAIFEM the mandate remains ever relevant. We must continue to support the institute to remain true to the aspiration of the founders. Our next step is to ensure that WAIFEM now becomes the training and capacity building institution of ECOWAS so that we can fill the capacity gave that still exists”.
“know the process has started but we need to fast track it to avail the entire ECOWAS countries opportunity to benefit from WAIFEM’s capacity building programmes. It will happen since we’re talking of regional integration and capacity building is one of the necessary steps to integrate”.

The governor of the CBN and his deputy Mrs Sarah Alade were however given awards for supporting the cause of the institute.