Agreement between German Federal Government and ECOWAS Commission opens new horizons for regional development

Berlin, Germany - September 30, 2023 - Negotiations between the German Federal Government and the ECOWAS Commission (Economic Community of West African States) took place in Berlin on September 28 and 29, 2023. The ECOWAS delegation was led by Vice-President Damitien L. Tchintchibidja,and included the Secretary General of West African Power Pool (WAPP), Mr. Siengui A. KI.

The German delegation was led by Mr. Christoph Rauph, Africa Director at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The high-level negotiations preceded by working level discussions between the German delegation and respective ECOWAS Commission officials enabled agreement to be reached on the allocation of 80.7 million euros to be made available to the ECOWAS Commission over the next two years to support ECOWAS's development efforts.

The areas covered by this budgetary allocation include:

1.  Peace and social inclusion
2. Just Transition, Climate and Energy
3. Sustainable Economic Development, Training and Employability
4. Health, Social Protection and Demographic Policy

In the field of energy, German delegation has pledged to provide the WAPP with an 18 million euro grant via Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) to support the WAPP initiative to improve the performance of its member Utilities. This significant financial contribution will enable the WAPP Secretariat to implement various activities aimed at improving the utilities' technical and financial performance, with a view to prepare them for effective participation in the Regional Electricity Market.

The WAPP Secretariat expressed its gratitude for this support and acknowledged the essential role that Germany has played and continues to play in the operationalization of the regional electricity market. He also informed the German delegation about the process of establishing the Liquidity Enhancing Revolving Fund (LERF), a facility designed to make authorizations for the execution of energy exchange contracts more reliable and to reduce payment risks in the regional electricity market and requested their support.

Additional support of 3 million euros has been granted to WAPP, ECREEE (ECOWAS Centre for Renewables and Energy Efficiency) and ERERA (ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Agency) in the form of technical assistance via GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) to continue activities under the Promotion of a Climate Friendly Electricity Market in the ECOWAS Region (ProMERC) program. This includes activities to strengthen the capacity of market actors and create conditions conducive to the integration of renewable energy and improved energy efficiency.