West Africa full of potential but states are fragile, Security Council told

West Africa is full of potential, but the fragility of its states has brought on a cycle in which there is no sustainable development without security, and little security or stability without development, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said today as he reported on a Security Council fact-finding trip to seven countries in the region.

Stopping in a different capital or major city every day, the 14-member delegation, led by Mr. Jones Parry, held talks in Accra, Ghana; Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire; Monrovia, Liberia; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Abuja, Nigeria; Bissau, Guinea-Bissau; and Conakry, Guinea; focusing especially on UN peacekeeping missions in Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

He reminded the Council that in 2015 UN members would review the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which address global problems such as extreme poverty and hunger, and Africa was way off track compared to most of Asia and Latin America.

Meanwhile, the West African region risked having problems that had been solved in one country migrate to its neighbour, he said. For this reason, the mission had gone beyond simple issues and had addressed such regional problems as human rights violations, small arms trafficking, the inequitable situation for women, poverty, HIV/AIDS, refugees and the demobilization, disarmament and reintegration of ex-combatants.

In Accra, the mission learned that the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS), now chaired by Ghana and already active in peacekeeping, intended to establish a stand-by force, he said.

For the first time since the signing of the 2003 Linas-Marcoussis peace agreement for Côte d'Ivoire, the signatories had been brought together to review their progress towards the goal of holding elections by 2005, he said.

The mission had been impressed by the improved security situation in Liberia and stressed that there should be no impunity for those who faced indictments, he said.

Sending condolences to the bereaved families of those UN workers who died yesterday in a helicopter crash in Sierra Leone, he said increasing that country's capacity to manage its own security and defence was only one of the challenges it was facing as the UN mission, UNAMSIL, was gradually drawn down.

In Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo underscored the importance of international support for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), an economic programme drawn up by himself and South African President Thabo Mbeki.