Memounatou Ibrahima: a woman committed to heading the ECOWAS Parliament
The 2024 second extraordinary session of the Parliament of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) closed its work on Thursday, May 23, 2024, in Kano (Nigeria) with the election of the Rt. Honorable Memounatou Ibrahima of Togo as Speaker of the 6th legislature of the regional parliamentary institution.
This marks a historic first time that a female has been elected to this position since the establishment of the first legislature in 2000.
Although holding the gavel as the symbol of authority of the Community Parliament operates on the principle of rotational succession in alphabetical order of Member States, the Honorable Memounatou Ibrahima does not owe her election solely to a coincidence of timing. She has the merit of a woman engaged in politics, elected several times as a Member of Parliament of the National Assembly of Togo, and having already shown leadership qualities as third deputy speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament during the 5th legislature.
Her election by acclamation by her peers as the head of the ECOWAS Parliament is therefore a crowning achievement of her commitment and availability to serve the regional institution.
The new Speaker’s desire to establish a code of ethics and good conduct within the Community Parliament should boost the work of members of Parliament and reinforce the credibility of a strong Parliament in its consultative role of assisting the decision-making of the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS.
Likewise, the strategic plan for this sixth legislature (2024-2028), adopted during this extraordinary session, aims to strengthen the pursuit of the strategic objectives of the Community: building an economically integrated West African space for shared prosperity between the populations.
This plan emphasizes the need to allocate resources to development programs likely to improve the standard of living of the citizens of the Community, which is in line with the ECOWAS Vision 2050, namely moving from an ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of Peoples.
