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5. The regional seminar brought together around 60 participants including parliamentarians from 13countries in West Africa 2 and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) MemberStates, representatives of the ECOWAS Parliament, key international and regional organizations[such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace andDisarmament in Africa (UNREC), the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES)], civil society organizations [suchas the West African Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA), the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding(WANEP)], and practitioners (European Commission Delegation, Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency (CIDA), the Parliamentary Centre (PC), and UNDP colleagues).6. The regional seminar provided a unique opportunity to establish a forum for parliamentarians fromWest Africa to reflect on past and future capacity development activities in the field of crisisprevention and recovery, armed violence and community security. The discussions held revolvedaround the following questions: What is the impact of such activities for parliaments in WestAfrica? What has been successful? What support is needed for effective parliamentary oversightand performance in crisis prevention and peace-building?7. More specifically, the objectives of the regional seminar were to:1) Present, review and discuss the findings of three research papers, highlighting best practicesand lessons learned in the region, and use the findings of the regional studies to initiate anddevelop a dialogue and open space for parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to identifycritical challenges and priorities regarding violence prevention and peace-building in the region;2) Identify and debate how parliamentarians see their role in overcoming obstacles to effectiveparliamentary oversight and performance in crisis prevention and recovery and security sectorreform issues, including concrete examples for sharing good practices and experiences;3) Present a draft self-assessment tool on parliamentary performance on crisis prevention andrecovery and security sector reform, ascertain its relevance and identify 2 potential countrycasestudies to be developed in the second semester;4) Develop a Joint Action Plan for partners to be put in place at the regional and national levelsin the region. The Joint Action Plan will identify issues that parliamentarians want to address,existing mechanisms and bottlenecks to effective action on those issues, and identify whatsupport is needed from UNDP and key partners in the region to empower parliamentarians toaddress priority issues.8. This report presents highlights of topics discussed, recommendations and conclusions of theregional seminar.2 Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Republic of Congo, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali,Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone and Togo.7