Abuja — The President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency James Victor Gbeho on Thursday, 14th July 2010 called for Germany's contribution to the 108-million US dollar electricity programme for Conakry, the capital of Guinea for which the Commission has provided 30 million US dollars. This was one of three requests placed before the visiting German Chancellor, Dr Angela Merkel who was at the Commission as part of her visit to Nigeria. President Gbeho said Germany's support would help close a 78-million dollar gap in funding for the programme meant to provide electricity to the capital. The provision of electricity to the capital was one of the three priorities identified by the new government in Guinea during a meeting with an ECOWAS delegation which was in the country in February 2011 to discuss how the Commission could support Guinea's economic recovery. The other two priorities were support for the provision of water supply and improvement of the country's agriculture.
The release of the 30 million dollars in ECOWAS support was approved by the Authority of Heads of State and Government during their 24th March 2011 summit in Abuja. Under the agreement for the financial support signed on 11th July by the President of the Commission with the Government of Guinea, 10 million dollars of the amount is a grant to the country while the remaining 20 million dollars represent a loan repayable over 20 years. The other two requests tabled on Thursday, 14th July 2011 relate to Germany's participation in the mobilization of resources for the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), and contribution to the ECOWAS Centre for Renewal Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) which is based in Praia, Cape Verde. EBID is involved with stimulating the economic development of the region while the Centre is mandated to encourage the deployment of the region's largely untapped but huge renewal energy potentials to improve energy access, stimulate investment in the sector and research on the application of the resources. The President also briefed the German Chancellor on the role of ECOWAS in facilitating the socio-economic integration of the region through the promotion of policy convergence and the establishment of relevant structures to facilitate the realization of this mandate. He praised GTZ, Germany's international development agency, for its contribution to the development of the region and capacity building for ECOWAS, saying that the Commission favoured the agency's approach of providing support through implementing priority projects of the Commission.
Responding, the German Chancellor praised ECOWAS for its role in resolving the "traumatic crises" in Cote d'Ivoire and some other Member States. She acknowledged the need for Germany to nuance its development support to address the peculiarities of the beneficiaries and pledged that her country would "try to be as helpful as possible" within the constraints of its resources. On the specific requests by the ECOWAS President, Chancellor Merkel promised that her country would study them and communicate the outcome to the Commission. She also highlighted the role of Germany in the construction of the African Union security architecture through the African Standard Force arrangement, saying that her country believed that responsibility for regional peace and security should be left with Regional Economic Communities with relevant support from donors and partners such as Germany.
