Vice President Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang has urged West African leaders to move beyond dialogue and take concrete steps to confront escalating security challenges in the region. Addressing the Joint Ministerial Meeting of the High-Level Consultative Conference on Regional Cooperation and Security, she cautioned that threats such as violent extremism and terrorism are interconnected and easily transcend national boundaries.
She called for stronger collaboration among leaders in the sub-region to tackle insecurity, stressing, “The challenges we face are increasingly interconnected and transnational. Violent extremism, terrorism, organised crime, cyber threats, and persistent youth unemployment do not respect borders, institutional mandates, or traditional policy silos.”
“In this context, leadership must go beyond reacting to immediate pressures. It requires foresight and coordination to ensure that security strategies, foreign policy, and development agendas complement one another rather than operate in isolation.” The Vice President underscored the importance of detecting early warning signs of terrorism and other threats to enable timely and effective responses. She stressed: “Acting together and proactively allows us to identify risks earlier, ease the strain on national systems, and preserve stability at a lower cost than reacting after crises emerge.”
She emphasised that prevention is not optional but a practical necessity, noting that challenges such as violent extremism, terrorism, organised crime, and counter-terrorism cooperation demand regional initiatives designed with implementation at their core. “The issues before us require regional strategies that place implementation front and center,” she added.
Source: Sarah Appiah
