“Transforming West Africa into a fair and safe community in which men and women have equal opportunities to participate, decide, control and take advantage of all development initiatives.”

EGDC is a multi-purpose regional agency charged with the responsibility to contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment in the ECOWAS region. It has the mandate to “work with Member States for the effective implementation of the ECOWAS Gender Policy.” To this end, EGDC initiates and facilitates capacity building through knowledge-based training and transfer of skills as well as programme development and management for women and men in the public and private sectors, in order to promote gender mainstreaming in all regional integration policies, strategies and programmes.

The Center’s work is guided by four basic principles:

• Justice
• Equity
• Equality
• Peace and Security