YAMOUSSOUKRO <197> West African leaders, meeting in Ivory Coast, have agreed to give their regional economic community ECOWAS a new executive secretariat to focus on joint development within Africa

The decision was announced in a statement after a summit here Friday among seven heads of state who discussed how to link the West African region into the continental plan, the New Partnership for Afr

The Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS) will become "the regional organization responsible for coordinating and following up on the implementation of NEPAD programs and for allocating a

Apart from the secretariat, which will be the "focal point" for regional NEPAD-related work, the leaders agreed to set up an investment guarantee fund to be placed with the ECOWAS Investment and Devel

They also decided to "harmonise transport policies within ECOWAS", which will in practical terms mean developing and linking rail networks and jointly regulating maritime traffic.

Host President Laurent Gbagbo stressed the importance of such infrastructure, "without which there can be no development".

ECOWAS heads of state said they would "as soon as possible undertake priority investment to develop a regional market." The meeting was also attended by the presidents of Benin, Cape Verde, Mali, Nige

NEPAD combines plans presented by Presidents Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of South Africa and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

The package was approved by the Organization of African Unity at its last summit and has so far met with a favorable response from donor nations since it is seen as making good governance in Africa as

The plan is also based on the principle that aid and debt relief are not sufficient to ensure sustained development, and encourages on private sector investors to help pull Africa out of poverty.

The leaders gathered in Yamoussoukro urged all ECOWAS nations to swiftly ratify and implement a wide-ranging nepad protocol which has already been approved by heads of state across the continent.

This provides for conflict management and peace-keeping mechanisms, with measures on good governance, democracy, fighting corruption, cracking down on money laundering and the proliferation of small a

Kabbaj and other finance officials suggested moves clearly to explain and implement standards drawn up by the NEPAD steering committee in the monetary, financial, tax and accounting domains -- an idea

NEPAD will be a major theme at next month's summit of the Group of Eight (G8) nations in Canada.

ECOWAS, whose current secretariat is based in the Nigerian capital Abuja, was given a year to draw up a plan of action to harmonize institutional and regulatory systems across the region.

The body groups Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.