The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission is organising a meeting of government experts from 23 to 25 October in Dakar, Senegal, to examine the supplementary act establishing the regional data exchange platform of the West African Police Information System (WAPIS) and its standard operating procedures.

The objective of this meeting is to finalise the draft supplementary Act relating to the WAPIS regional platform, as recommended by the 10th WAPIS Steering Committee and the ECOWAS Committee of Experts meeting held in May 2024, in preparation for the creation of the WAPIS regional platform to be presented to the Mediation and Security Council for adoption.

Participants at the meeting of government experts were drawn from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior and or Security and Justice of the ECOWAS Member States, the ECOWAS Commission, the European Union and INTERPOL.

Three speeches were delivered at the opening ceremony of the workshop, which took place on Wednesday 23 October 2024. The first was by Richard GOTWE, Head of the West African Police Information System (WAPIS) Programme and representing INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen STOCK. Mr. GOTWE, urged the WAPIS team and the beneficiary countries to intensify their commitment and determination to implement the actions required to make the WAPIS system a tool at the daily service of law enforcement actors in the ECOWAS region. He noted that the regional platform could only function if the national platforms were functional, the database regularly updated by the member states, and the financial resources mechanism and administrative procedures were well developed.

According to Dr Abdourahman DIENG, Head of the Regional Security Division at the ECOWAS Commission, the WAPIS programme, implemented with the financial support of the European Union, has grown in scale in West Africa and has continued to receive the support of the governments of the Member States. He added that data collection and recording centres have been set up and made operational, while d law enforcement agencies have been trained and equipped with WAPIS workstations. He also disclosed that National WAPIS committees have been set up at the national level and legal texts/decrees have been adopted to legalise the system.

“Today marks an important milestone in the implementation and sustainability of the WAPIS programme in the region… The regional data sharing platform is an essential aspect of the implementation of the WAPIS programme. Its creation will enable law enforcement agencies in the ECOWAS region to share crime data with each other at regional and international levels’, said Dr. DIENG.

In his Opening remarks, General Jean Baptiste TINE, Senegal’s Minister of the Interior and Public Security, represented by Mr. CHEIK NIANG, Secretary General of the Ministry, expressed his satisfaction that his country was one of the beneficiaries of the WAPIS programme. ‘WAPIS-Senegal plays a catalytic role in strengthening security and synergies between law enforcement agencies in our country,’ said General Jean Baptiste TINE.

According to the minister TINE, the law enforcement services of West African countries currently need regional and international cooperation to exchange criminal data via a secure platform in order to unmask criminals who move between porous borders under several fraudulent identities. This, he said, would be done while respecting the sovereignty of each State and guaranteeing sanctity and protection of their personal data.

“Through this regional platform for exchanging criminal information, WAPIS will occupy an important place in the security architecture of West Africa, since it will immediately provide investigation services with useful information on the criminal record of any person being prosecuted, as well as tracking down wanted persons, weapons, vehicles and other objects of interest” said Senegal’s Minister of the Interior and Public Security, General Jean Baptiste TINE.

We should recall that the West African Police Information System (SIPAO) aims to meet the security challenges facing West African countries by enabling the efficient collection of police information via a centralised national system and providing the possibility of exchanging the information gathered at national, regional and international level.

The third phase of SIPAO, funded by the 11th European Development Fund, began on 15 November 2017, with a planned 72-month deployment and a budget of €28 million. It aims to deploy the SIPAO system throughout the territory of the ECOWAS Member States, as well as in Mauritania, through legal, operational and technical support and appropriate training.

At the end of this phase, it is planned to set up a regional data-sharing platform to enable law enforcement agencies in the region to rapidly exchange operational information, in particular data on wanted persons or stolen travel documents and vehicles, in order to effectively combat these types of offences.