While ECOWAS is in a delicate position in the current political crises in the region, especially in Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, where elections are being held under pressure today, you have chosen to emphasize the lack of regional coordination of health measures. at airports, a coordination that could have made life easier for travelers in West Africa since the reopening of air borders.
It is regrettable that, on specific issues concerning the citizens of the West African regional regions considered to be the most integrated on the continent, there is no common policy applicable to all airports in the region. .
However, Ivory Coast sociology professor Francis Akindès had launched in July on the platform change.org, a petition calling for “anti-covid-19 measures harmonized at the borders of the countries of Cédéao.” Here is what the text of the petition said, which can still be signed today: “Measures vary so much from country to country that travel candidates are not there. Although the need to curb the development of the pandemic through border controls is still crucial, it is also imperative that ECOWAS coordinates a common, clear and rational definition of measures both at the internal borders and at the external borders of the Community in order to facilitate the mobility of travelers, so that the joint decisions, once validated by all states, must be displayed and applied in full transparency. at the various limits of users’ happiness and safety. ”
Three months later, it’s still the puzzle for travelers who do not know where to find information about each destination country. Some examples of these national measures.
I must first say that the measures are evolving in each country and that the latest information gathered can quickly become obsolete. So on arrival in Dakar, each passenger must present a negative Covid-19 test result that results from less than five days. The price at Dakar Airport is 40,000 FCFA. Upon arrival at Abidjan Airport in Côte d’Ivoire, the negative test certificate must be less than five days old. The price for the test is 48,000. In Cotonou, Benin, every traveler who leaves the country is subjected to the screening test at the airport, and it has cost 50,000 FCFA since the beginning of September. The test cost 100,000 FCFA before this revision. For families, the bill could quickly be staggering. In Ghana, any passenger leaving Accra must have a negative test performed less than 72 hours before departure. And he has to pass another mandatory test performed at the airport terminal at his expense, which is still US $ 150 or about 85,000 FCFA. In Lomé, Togo, passengers are tested in a specially equipped laboratory. An application called Togo Safe, launched on September 4 to track contacts in Covid-19 cases, must be downloaded by travelers upon arrival. The technological approach is interesting, but for those familiar with the security culture of the Togolese government, a tracking application may provide some caveats. What is clear is that there is no common policy at regional level.
It is a shame because African organizations had responded fairly quickly and well to the onset of the epidemic on the continent.
This was particularly the case with the African Union through its Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and ECOWAS. On 14 February 2020, the Health Ministers of the ECOWAS countries met in Bamako. And on April 23, it was the turn of the West African heads of state to meet at video conference at an extraordinary summit on the pandemic. Unfortunately, good intentions were unfortunately lost along the way, and ECOWAS again missed the opportunity to give a strong signal of its desire to be of service to the people by making their lives easier.
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