The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou and the Director of the French Development Agency (AFD) in Nigeria, Xavier Muron signed, on Tuesday, December 7, 2021 in Abuja, Nigeria, a grant agreement worth 5.27 billion CFA francs. It was in the presence of the Ambassador of France to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Emmanuelle Blatmann.

The new agreement between ECOWAS and AFD is intended for additional financing of an interim phase of support for the food security storage program in West Africa. This partnership is the continuation of a pilot phase financed by the European Union to the tune of 56 million euros (including 31.9 M€ delegated to AFD) in support of the ECOWAS regional storage strategy. Adopted in 2012, this strategy combines local stocks, national stocks and a Regional Food Security Reserve (RRSA) to bring regional solidarity into play in the event of a major food crisis in the region. The new support aims to increase the region's capacity to manage food, nutritional and pastoral crises, the causes of which are diverse. Increasing this crisis management capacity involves consolidating, in the short term, the achievements of the implementation of the first phase of the RFSR and building a multilateral partnership around the regional storage system over the medium and long terms.