To recall, faced with the Covid-19 pandemic and following the alerts from the RPCA, the ECOWAS and the European Union Commissions have decided to combine their efforts and resources to donate a total quantity of 6,219 tons of cereals, not including nutritional products, to the four countries most affected by the food and nutritional crisis, namely Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

Following the authorization given to ECOWAS by the Management Committee of the Regional Food Security Reserve (RFSR) to use the products of the RFSR for interventions, an official handover of food donations was made to Burkina Faso and Niger on 27 July 2020.

The total of 954 tons of cereals for Burkina Faso and 473 tons of cereals plus nutritional products worth nearly 430,000 euros for Niger is the result of a joint funding from the ECOWAS Humanitarian Emergency Fund and the contingency mobilization of the EU-funded West Africa Food Security Storage Support Project.

These donations add to the multifaceted support that ECOWAS has been providing to its Member States since the outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the region on 27 February 2020.

This food assistance will help the most vulnerable households to cope with the multiple crises while preserving their livelihoods.

In both cases, the ECOWAS and the European Union Commissions are acting as Third-Party Payers, thus ensuring the full replenishment of the RFSR capital mobilized for these interventions.

After Burkina Faso and Niger, ECOWAS is currently discussing with Nigeria and Mali to agree on a date and the modalities for the handover of food grains to their respective Governments.