From the 16th to the 19th of October 2023, my colleague Aurelie Majo and I from our firm, STRATEGIES!, had the privilege of facilitating a workshop for parliamentarians from the public accounts and/or finance committees of five West African and one Central African country. The workshop was organized by the GIZ Regional Program on Good Financial Governance in Africa – Legislative Oversight Component, in support of its partner, AFROPAC, specifically the West African branch WAAPAC. The workshop also provided an enormous opportunity to get a glimpse of what is happening in the political transitions currently underway in West and Central Africa as the participant countries included regularly elected parliaments – Cote d’Ivoire and Benin; as well as nominated transition parliaments: Chad, Mali, Guinea and host country Burkina Faso.
This commentary focuses on the West African countries: Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. The Chadian experience seems to be different from those in West Africa.
It is important to note that parliamentarians at the workshop constitute a rather specific group. Being from the public accounts and/or finance committees within their parliaments, they are somewhat of an “elite” group in most countries. Observations in this article should be read through this lens.