To increase the capacity of its member nations to practice agroecology, the Economic Community of West African Nations (ECOWAS) inked grant agreements for 1.3 million euros with 15 training facilities.
The funding agreements were signed, according to a statement on the ECOWAS website, by the commission’s president, Dr. Omar Alieu Touray.
The capacity-building initiative is a component of the ECOWAS Agroecology initiative, which is being implemented with co-funding from the French Development Agency and the European Union.
The grant agreements received funding from the European Union totaled 1,320,784.43 euros, or around 88,000 euros per center, over an average period of 18 months, to educate 12,000 young people in the area.
The statement states that each grant’s goal is to create a framework for cooperation between ECOWAS and the beneficiary center to carry out program operations in West Africa.
This is done with the overarching goal of creating a system of human resources and environmental stewardship that will preserve and boost agricultural productivity and fortify rural communities.
The 15 training centers, one for each member state, were chosen after appropriate consultation and evaluation.
Additionally, by assisting the centers through the agreements, ECOWAS hopes to raise the standard of instruction and advance the capabilities of the centers.
To improve training quality and increase the number of persons trained each year, training would focus on current agroecological challenges.
The program’s overall goal is to train 12,000 young people in the region in agroecology by 2024, including both men and women.
One of the goals of the assistance is to help the centers improve their capacity for training to support high-quality training systems.
Another goal is to increase the number of young people who receive training, especially those from remote areas, and to make it easier for them to connect with partners or organizations that may provide support.
This is to potentially fund the expansion of agroecological methods.
