Trade and agriculture ministers from the 15-member bloc meet in Nigeria's capital Abuja on Monday to discuss the impact of soaring food prices, which ECOWAS economists estimate could cost the region $11.6 billion in emergency intervention alone.

Rocketing prices for staples such as rice and millet, reflecting a global surge in the cost of major cereals and oil, have triggered riots and protests across West Africa, the poorest region of the world's least developed continent.

"We need to look at the issue in two dimensions. First how to help member states facing an immediate problem, then how to address the problem in the medium to long term in a structural way," ECOWAS Executive Secretary Mohammed Ibn Chambas said.

"(We need) a common agricultural policy which can help us to share and harness the resources of the region collectively," he told Reuters by telephone.

Governments around the region have scrambled to take short-term measures, such as easing taxes on basic food imports or introducing price control measures, to try to ease the burden on already impoverished populations.

In a presentation ahead of Monday's ministerial meeting, ECOWAS economists estimated immediate steps to improve access to food supplies, lift food production and build up safety stocks could cost member states $11.6 billion.

While the region's larger economies such as oil-producing Nigeria or cocoa-producing Ivory Coast have been able to absorb the cost of measures like tax cuts with relative ease, sustained high food prices are more challenging for the poorest states.

INFANT DEATHS

In Niger, an arid country on the edge of the Sahara where one in five children die before their fifth birthday, aid agencies fear high prices could put decent nutrition beyond the reach of millions of people even if the next harvest is good.

Burkina Faso, a landlocked former French colony, has moved to cut import duties and subsidise cereals but unions called a general strike last week to demand salary rises and tougher government action. Thousands have taken to the streets.

Similar demonstrations have been held around the region.

"The increasing prices of foodstuffs, if not properly checked, could prove a serious threat to stability and economic growth in Africa and West Africa in particular," Jean de Dieu Somda, vice president of the ECOWAS Commission, said.