This Vision, replacing the expired Vision 2020, defines aspirations and expectations of ECOWAS States and serves as blueprint for the regional development of the Member Countries, considering both the significant achievements and progress, and the challenges to be addressed, including: outbreak of health pandemics, youth unemployment, impact of climate change and slow economic development. The Vision is structured as follows: I) Introduction, including: general framework, institutional mechanism of ECOWAS, institutional reforms. II) ECOWAS Integration process: evaluation of Vision 2020 and retrospective analysis, including: key findings, demography, human capital, social development, environment and natural resources, governance, peace and security, economic growth, private sector development and structural transformation, economic and monetary integration and economic infrastructure. III) ECOWAS Aspirations and its 2050 Vision. IV) Strategic orientations, guiding principles and success factors, including: cross-cutting issues. V) Conclusion.
The Vision focuses its analysis on the challenges and future perspectives involving the following topics: high fertility rates; urbanisation and changing people s behaviour; positive and negative aspects of youth demography; improvement of social and economic conditions of the populations; strengthening of health sector; adaptation of education system to current labour market trends in the agricultural sector; improvement of food value chain and transformation of food system, in order to decrease food insecurity and the proportion of poor people in the region; reduction of high levels of gender inequality; better management of environmental pollution; development of renewable energy sources; protection of forest resource and fight against deforestation, land degradation and loss of biodiversity; improved access to water and sanitation; increased use of water for agricultural productivity; water pollution control; integrated management of cross-border river basins; development of water infrastructure; development of mineral resources and the mining sector. The Vision 2050 is based on five pillars with related objectives and orientations: peace, security and stability; governance and rule of law; economic integration; transformation, inclusive and sustainable development; social inclusion.