West Africa: Gambia to Benefit From ECOWAS Grant Agreement Project

31 July 2023
The Point (Banjul)
By Lamin B. Darboe

As part of the implementation of the ECOWAS Regional Strategy of Youth in Agro Sylvo-Pastoral and Halieutic Sector, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, H.E. Dr. Omar Alieu Touray has signed grant agreements with 25 Centers. The centres are 10 special Agriculture Training Centers; 6 National Agriculture Research Centers and 9 National Research Centers of Specialization on Agricultural Innovations and will be assisted through building youth capacities in the 15 member States.

These countries include: The Gambia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Togo.

The total budget of the grant agreements funded by the Community levy of ECOWAS is $USD1,033,7991 representing about $USD 41,359.64 per centre and for an average duration of 4 months aimed at training 3142 young persons among which 30% will be women.

The purpose of each grant is to establish the framework of collaboration between ECOWAS and the recipient centers for the implementation of the Regional Strategy of Youth employment in Agro Sylvo-Pastoral and Halieutic Sector in West Africa with the general objective of building the human resource and environmentally friendly system that will sustain and increase agricultural productivity, youth employment and create resilient rural society. The 25 training centres represent the 15 Member States. Each state is involved in the process.

In supporting the centres through the agreements, ECOWAS seeks to improve the quality of training and the development of the centre capacities on topical issues related to agroecology and organic production, fisheries and aquaculture, breeding and seeds selection and scaling of innovations and agribusiness. This is to increase the annual number of people trained in atotal of agriculture and food sector. The target of the Programme is 3142 young people including men and women trained by the end of 2023 in agriculture and food in the region.

More specifically, the objective of the support is to contribute to strengthening youth capacities in agribusiness; promotion of agricultural innovations and good practices according to the environment; increase in the number of young people trained in particular rural people, and their networking in the long term.

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