By Princess-Ekwi Ajide
The ECOWAS Commission has signed €1.3 million grant to train youths of member states in agrocology.
The President of ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Omar Alieu Touray, signed grant agreements with 15 training Centres to build capacity of youths on Agroecology in Member States to the total budget of €1,320,784.43 representing about €88,000 per centre and for an average period of 18 months.
The Commission is to train about 12,000 youths by 2024 as part of its implementation of the ECOWAS Agroecology Programme funded by the European Union so as to build a human resource and environmentally friendly system that will sustain and increase agricultural productivity and create resilient rural society in the region.
Each grant is expected to establish the framework of collaboration between ECOWAS and the recipient Centre for the implementation of the Programme activities in West Africa with the general objective of. Selected following due consultation and assessment process, the 15 training centres represent one per Member State.
Through the agreements, ECOWAS seeks to support the training centres to improve on the quality of training and the development of the centres’ capacities on topical issues related to agroecology and to increase the annual number of people trained in agroecology.
The support would contribute to strengthening the training capacities of the centres in (i) the promotion of quality training systems integrating application of theoretical and practical lessons on agroecological techniques and good practices according to the environment, (ii) the increase in the number of young people trained, in particular rural people, and (iii) their networking in the long term, (iv) facilitating their connection with support organisations/partners for possible financing in the scaling up of agroecological practices.
The support training centres falls within the objective of the Programme to facilitate networking and dissemination of pilot experiences and promising approaches in agroecology (with the Songhai Centre in Benin and the CIDAP Centre in Togo as reference centres) in other countries of the sub-region, particularly in the Sahel.
