The accord also addressed migration, a sustainable food system, inexpensive and renewable energy, and food security.
Jutta Urpilainen, head of the EU delegation and European Commissioner for International Partnerships, traveled to Abuja alongside Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy, to sign agreements with ECOWAS Commission President Omar Alieu Touray.
The EU, she continued, has traditionally supported regional integration because it adds value and leads to development. Urpilainen said that the ECOWAS organization currently faces political difficulties and said that the agreements play a crucial part in stabilizing the region by fostering democracy, the rule of law, and economic cooperation.
In his answer, ECOWAS President Touray thanked the EU for its ongoing strategic collaboration with ECOWAS, noting that it always offers assistance in tackling local problems.
The breakdown of agreements includes €34 million in support for immigration and free movement of people. In the context of the regional integration process, this is done to maximize the development potential of migration and free movement of people within a more secure and rights-based Economic Community of West African Countries. This would be accomplished by encouraging the efficient implementation of the ECOWAS Common Approach on Migration and the ECOWAS Free Movement Protocol at the regional, national, and local levels.
With the help of €50 million, Africa's trade competitiveness and market access were supported. By improving market access and export competitiveness for SMEs in certain value chains, this would promote sustainable intra-African trade and strengthen trade between Africa and the EU.
The third agreement, at €l1.5 million, dealt with the trade of services in Sub-Saharan Africa. In order to boost intra-regional, continental, and bilateral trade in services and enable deeper integration into regional and global value chains, it was intended to support the liberalization of services and exports for a few selected service industries.
In order to build the regional power market, operationalize its interconnected system, and boost the proportion of renewable energy in the energy mix, there was also an assistance program for specialist ECOWAS organizations engaged in the energy sector. With the foundation and growth of the regional electricity market, €25 million was set aside for this agreement, which had the goal of increasing the proportion of renewable energy in the energy mix for women and men in all their diversity.
"Regional Clean Cooking Action in West Africa - ReCCAWA, E12 million, for increasing access to clean, efficient, sustainable, and affordable cooking energy solutions in West Africa by strengthening the clean cooking enabling framework at regional and national scales, by proposing innovative financing and promoting business models that will scale-up the supply, dissemination, and adoption of clean cooking solutions, by creating and disseminating evidence-based data and information, and by increasing the availability of clean cooking solutions in West Africa"
Project to Support the West African Regional Food Security Storage Strategy
PASRSSA has €20,000,000. It serves to promote the regional governance of food and nutrition security of actors in the Sahel Club and West Africa, as well as the integrated and coordinated implementation of the ECOWAS regional storage plan.
The EU Commissioner announced "PRADEP-AOS, a 60 million euro regional support program for the development of the pastoral economy in West Africa and the Sahel, to strengthen the contribution of the livestock sector to the transformation of sustainable food systems and to inclusive and resilient green growth of the economies of the countries of the region."