About WAAID

For more than 30 years, the West African Agency for International Development (WAAID) has been building human capital and institutional capacity for West Africa’s sustainable development. The West African Agency for International Development (WAAID) is an autonomous and specialized agency of West African region. The establishment of WAAID is part of the process of making the Sustainable Development Goals of the West African region operational.

With membership from 15 West African Countries, the West African Agency for International Development (WAAID), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), The African Union (AU), and The World Bank, WAAID is the leading institution for capacity development in West Africa.

While serving all actors, WAAID recognizes the importance of and pays attention to improving the effectiveness of West Africa’s public sector institutions at local, national and regional levels to become effective systems integrators and catalysts of sustainable and transformative change.

Since its creation in 1991, WAAID has trained and empowered over 50,000 entrepreneurs and supported several indigenous companies to improve their performance and competitiveness. The Agency has established a network of over 50 think tanks supporting evidence-based policymaking across West Africa and conducted numerous policy research/analyses, which have been critical in informing economic management and establishing benchmarks for success.

WAAID was formed to advance the cause of industrialization, development and economic growth, alleviate poverty, enhance the standard and quality of life of the people of West Africa and support the socially disadvantaged through Regional Integration; through effective coordination of utilisation of the specific characteristics and strengths of each country and its resources. WAAID objectives went beyond just dependence reduction to embrace basic development and regional integration.
 
In light of the purpose of Sustainable Development, which is to promote Sustainable Development as well as regional integration in West Africa, and the objectives of the Sustainable Development programmes (national and regional), the mandate assigned to West African Agency for International Development (WAAID) is to “ensure the technical implementation of the regional investment programmes and plans contributing to making the regional Sustainable Development operational by calling on the regional institutions, bodies and actors with recognised competencies”.
 
Implementing the investment programmes requires the creation of sufficiently well-equipped and accountable governance institutions in an institutional landscape marked by the duplication of bodies and activities. With this in mind, the Agency is the technical institution through which the region can fully assume its sovereign role in accompanying the regional actors and institutions in the field of cooperation in implementing the investment plans. As such, the Agency is not directly responsible for executing the actions in the field, instead negotiating contracts with the technical institutions and all other actors demonstrating recognised competencies.
 
More specifically, WAAID has the mandate to:

Strengthen the technical capacities of the member states to intervene and take action, in particular those of the Capacity Building programmes in the implementation of investment programmes to enable it fully play its sovereign role including, strategic orientation, regulations, guidance, monitoring and evaluation and strategic monitoring.

Coordinate and streamlining the activities of the specialized technical institutions in the Sustainable Development.

contribute to building the capacities of the regional actors in the preparation of records as well as implementing and monitoring activities. The Agency must contribute to improving the services of the different technical cooperation institutions and the other regional actors operating within the sector such as the private sector, professional organisations and civil society. This accompaniment involves thematic training as well as support for the implementation and monitoring of projects.