At a ceremony in Abuja, Swedish Ambassador to Nigeria, Svante Kilander, signed a US$6.7m grant to support the ECOWAS programme on climate change.
The Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), is the first of Africa’s international organisations to sign such a deal, committed to a programme to decrease vulnerability to climate change.
“This will be a difficult but necessary work and the role of ECOWAS is to support its member states in developing and implementing actions that are most relevant to their different contexts and opportunities,” said the ambassador.
“Sweden is proud to be the first partner providing direct financing to this programme; with this, we show an increased effort to work together with ECOWAS,” he said.
Commenting on the grant, President of ECOWAS Commission, Desire Ouedraogo, said “development cannot be achieved without a sound environment. Among the priority areas of ECOWAS are agriculture, environment and climate change so this grant is timely as it will enable us to enhance our capacity in climate change vulnerability and adaptation programmes,”
ECOWAS was formed in 1975 with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos, aimed at co-operation between West African states towards sustainability and integration in economic and trade issues. Presently there are 15 members.
Sweden commits more than US$60m a year to initiatives like this in Africa.