The West Africa Regional Program (WARP) was created when key USAID staff in Washington and the field collectively felt that a program dealing with the West African development challenges that are most effectively addressed at a regional level was needed. A strategy was subsequently developed for implementation through 2008.

USAID/WARP is an independent USAID Operating Unit responsible for managing a development program that covers 18 countries, of which only six have USAID bilateral missions. Its host government equivalents are the major regional intergovernmental organizations, chief of which is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). WARP supports all three of ECOWAS’ top priority and World Bank endorsed programs in the areas of the Common External Tariff, the West African Power Pool, and conflict prevention.

Other key partners include the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), the West Africa Health Organization (WAHO), the health affiliate of ECOWAS, and regional NGO networks such as the West Africa Network for Peace building (WANEP) and the West African Businesswomen’s Network (WABNET). The program’s beneficiaries are not only the region’s citizens, but also other USAID missions and U.S. embassies whose bilateral efforts benefit from the added value that the program brings.

The program serves the 19 nations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

While West Africa possesses a rich resource base and enormous developmental potential, weak institutions, poor management, and some of the world’s highest levels of corruption consistently undermine efforts to put its resources to work for the good of its people.

These factors are the major obstacles to the transition from poverty to prosperity. The socio-economic indicators for the region remain abysmally low. For example, seventy-five per cent of the countries feature in the lowest 25 ranks of the United Nation’s 2002 Human Development Index and some 40 million adult West Africans and one-third of under-fives are malnourished. Statistics such as these clearly show that West African states have failed to come to grips with the underlying causes of poverty and underdevelopment.

U.S. interests in West Africa encompass strategic, economic, and humanitarian concerns. West Africa’s strategic importance remains high, yet chronic poverty and instability inhibit development and combine with porous borders and pervasive corruption to make the region an incubator for conflict and the recruitment of terrorists. Important oil deposits in the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahara underline the region’s importance as a potential trading partner, and trade between the United States and the region is being promoted under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The United States provides millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to the region to aid victims of conflict, disease, and natural disasters, and in FY 2003, two countries considered the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in West Africa, Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria, were included in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

In sum, the United States remains committed to assisting regional development through its four-sector program that (a) encourages the emergence of competitive market economies, (b) addresses regional health issues, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic, (c) promotes agriculture for trade and food security, and (d) strengthens conflict prevention and peace-building mechanisms, and tackles corruption.