The European Union has announced that it would be funding the Sahel region countries with a total of £125 million. This announcement was made at the coordination conference of the G5 Sahel partners and donors which took place last week in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
The funding would be used for the commencement of new initiatives that are in line with the priorities set by the G5 Sahel to promote development and security. The G5 Sahel consists of five countries, a part of the Sahel region that has been facing an increase in terrorist threats and organized crime that is destabilizing the region.
The G5 Sahel body, which consists of Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad, was formed in 2014 to promote closer cooperation and address the major challenges facing them including extreme poverty, terrorism, and human trafficking. Funding has been one of the major problems of the region in overcoming these threats.
The European Union has supported this African initiative from the beginning in order to forge a strong partnership on various fronts: political dialogue, development cooperation and humanitarian aid, and efforts to enhance security and tackle irregular migration.
Now, there would be more focus on the most vulnerable countries in the cross-border regions. The European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica said:
“Ten months after the Brussels Conference on the Sahel, which mobilized the international community around the G5 Joint Force, we are now focusing on the incontrovertible need to complement our security initiatives with development projects. The additional EUR 125 million announced by the European Union today will focus on development projects in the most vulnerable areas, with an immediate impact on the living conditions of local communities.”
The new funding consists of a contribution of £70 million to help improve the living conditions for people in cross-border areas by improving the quality of their basic services, initiatives worth £55 million to help strengthen the capabilities of the G5 Sahel institutions in the area of justice and security, to fight human trafficking and defend human rights. These funds would be added to the £672.7 million already available to support ongoing activities from the priorities identified by the body.
Funding has been a major challenge the G5 Sahel countries have faced. The European Union has however been supportive of the African initiative to foster development. The EU and its member states have contributed a total of £8 billion for development cooperation to the G5 Sahel countries for the period between 2014 and 2020.
