Past and Present ECOWAS Commission Executive Secretaries & Presidents
Aboubakar Diaby Ouattara (1977–1985)
Aboubakar Diaby Ouattara is a member of the Côte d’Ivoire’s diplomatic corps. From the time the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was established in 1977 until 1985, he held the position of first Executive Secretary in that organisation.
Momodu Munu (1985-1989)
Momodu Munu is a retired diplomat from the African nation of Sierra Leone. Munu was appointed Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States in 1985 and served until 1989.
Abass Bundu (1989–1993)
Abass Chernor Bundu has been a Sierra Leonean politician, diplomat, and House Speaker since April 25, 2018. Bundu received 70 votes to become the speaker. The All People’s Congress, which won the most seats in parliament, boycotted the election process and did not nominate a candidate for speaker. Bundu is a veteran politician and Julius Maada Bio’s close friend. Before becoming the speaker, Bundu was SLPP’s northern regional chairman. He’s one of the ruling party’s most senior and influential members. Bundu is the older brother of All People’s Congress MP Ibrahim Bundu. Bundu served as the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 1989 to 1993. Bundu headed Foreign Affairs and Agriculture in Sierra Leone. He was the presidential candidate of the now-defunct Progressive People’s Party (PPP) in 1996 in Sierra Leone, where he was defeated in the first round.
Édouard Benjamin (1993–1997)
Édouard Benjamin is a diplomat for the African nation of Guinea. From 1989 to 1992, he held the Minister of Economy and Finance position. From 1993 until 1997, he was the Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States, also known as ECOWAS.
Lansana Kouyaté (1997-2002)
Lansana Kouyaté was Guinea’s PM from 2007 to 2008. He was ECOWAS executive secretary from 1997 to 2002. In 1982, Kouyaté worked on a rice improvement project before joining Guinea’s Cote d’Ivoire delegation. In 1985, he returned to Conakry as Director of African and OAU affairs; he was Guinea’s ambassador to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, and Turkey two years later. In 1992, he became Guinea’s Permanent Representative to the UN and Vice President of the ECOSOC. In 1993, he was named Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Somalia for UNOSOM II, then Acting Representative in February 1994. In June 1994, he became the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. One of his first assignments was to travel to ECOWAS member states to discuss Liberia. He continued to build regional support for ending the First Liberian Civil War. He left in September 1997 to become Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a role he maintained until February 2002.
Mohamed Ibn Chambas (2002-2010)
Mohamed Ibn Chambas is a lawyer, diplomat, politician, and academic from Ghana. Since 2006, he has worked as an international civil servant. His previous positions include Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States (2010-2012), President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS, 2006–2009), and Special Representative and Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the Darfur Peacekeeping Mission (2012-2014). The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) chose Chambas as its Executive Secretary in 2001, and he took office on February 1 of that year. From 2002 until 2006, he served as Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), overseeing the organisation’s 15-person Executive Secretariat. On January 1, 2007, he took office as the ECOWAS Commission’s first president, a post he held until February 18, 2010. From April 2014 to April 2021, he oversaw UNOWAS as the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and the Sahel.
James Victor Gbeho (2010–2012)
James Victor Gbeho is a Ghanaian lawyer and diplomat who was President of ECOWAS from 2010 to 2012. He was unanimously elected at the 37th Summit of the 15 Member States’ Heads of State and Government. He was Ghana’s Foreign Minister under President Jerry Rawlings from 1997 to 2001 and the Anlo MP from 2001 to 2005. He became President John Atta Mills’ foreign policy advisor. Before retiring as a diplomat and politician, Gbeho served in Ghana’s diplomatic missions abroad. He served in Ghana’s missions in China, India, Nigeria, Germany, the UK, and Switzerland. Gbeho was Ghana’s Deputy High Commissioner to the Court of St. James’s (UK) from 1972 to 1976, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European offices of the UN in Geneva (1978–80), with concurrent accreditation to UNIDO in Vienna, Austria, and Ghana’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York City from 1980 to 1990, concurrently accredited to Cuba, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. The UN Secretary-General appointed him to Somalia in July 1994. Jerry Rawlings, as ECOWAS chairman, appointed Gbeho as Liberia’s special representative.
Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo (2012-2016)
Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo has served as the Prime Minister of Burkina Faso (from 1996 to 2000) and the chairman of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (from 2012 to 2016). He began working in the Financial Division of FOSIDEC at ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) headquarters in Ouagadougou in 1980. From 1981 through 1983, he served as FOSIDEC’s Head of the Financial Division before becoming ECOWAS’s Financial Advisor to the Secretary-General. In July 1985, he was moved to Deputy Executive Secretary of ECOWAS in Lagos, Nigeria, where he oversaw the organisation’s economic policy. The Council of Ministers of this group re-appointed him in 1989. Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo was named Vice-Governor of the CBWAS in Senegal in 1993.
Marcel Alain de Souza (2016-2018)
Marcel Alain de Souza was a politician and banker in Benin. From May 2011 until June 2015, he served as Benin’s Minister for Development, Economic Analysis, and Forecast. Between April 2016 and February 2018, he presided over the ECOWAS Commission; in light of the dire financial circumstances of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), he temporarily halted all official ECOWAS staff travel outside of the Abuja ECOWAS headquarters. He also restricted employees’ participation in mandatory ECOWAS events. During his presidency, the Gambian constitutional crisis of 2016 and 2017 occurred. He expressed doubts about ECOWAS’s progress toward its aim of establishing a unified currency by 2020 in October 2017. On February 28, 2018, his term as president ended.
Jean-Claude Brou (2018-2022)
Jean-Claude Kassi Brou is a prominent political and economic figure in Ivory Coast. Since March 1 2018, he has served as President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States. His term ended on July 3 2022. He was Ivory Coast’s Minister of Industry and Mines from November 2012 until March 2018. Ivory Coast was given the Presidency of the ECOWAS Commission on December 16, 2017, during the 52nd Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with Brou appointed the following year to serve a four-year term. On March 1, 2018, Brou officially replaced Marcel Alain de Souza. Brou continued his role as Minister of Industry and Mines until his appointment. Jean-Claude Brou was picked as the new governor of the BCEAO in June of 2022.
Omar Touray (2022-present)
Omar Alieu Touray is a diplomat from the Gambia. He was Gambia’s UN ambassador from 2007 to 2008 and foreign minister since March 2008; he was World Indigenous Organization’s Geneva liaison from September 1993 to December 1994. He was a consultant at the International Labour Office in Geneva until July 1995, when he became Senior Assistant Secretary at the Gambian Ministry of External Affairs and First Secretary of the Gambian Embassy to Belgium, EU, and WTO. He was a Counsellor and Head of Chancery at the same embassy until April 2002. From April 2002 to September 2007, Touray was Gambian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Permanent Representative to the African Union, UN Economic Commission for Africa, and UN Environment Programme, and High Commissioner to South Africa and Kenya. He replaced Crispin Grey-Johnson as Gambia’s Permanent Representative to the UN on March 19, 2008. On March 26, Touray took the oath of office as Secretary of State. He worked for the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia and Ivory Coast after being fired in September 2009. Omar Touray was unanimously appointed ECOWAS Commission president in October 2021. On July 3, 2022, he succeeded Jean-Claude Brou as president of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).