By Benjamin umuteme
Abuja
The World Bank has assured it would upscale its regional integration support commitments in the West African sub region from the current commitments of over $10 billion over the next three years.
Speaking at a high level meeting between the Bank and the ECOWAS Commission, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Rachid Benmessaoud, said the new commitment will unlock the energy potential of the sub region.
“For example, we have committed over $5 billion in financing regional energy infrastructure and now is the right time to focus on building the legal, regulatory and risk financing arrangements so that the West Africa Power Pool can gain the full confidence of the selling and buying countries. This could be instrumental in helping unlock the huge power generation capacity in the region and rapidly improve access to energy.
“Our new strategy will soon be discussed by our Board and it is aimed to support the second and third-generation integration efforts. For example,” said Benmessaoud, who also doubles as the Bank’s Coordinating Director for West Africa Regional Integration Programme.
The discussion which centred on the banks’ new Regional Integration & Cooperation Assistance Strategy also assessed whether West Africa is currently reaping the full benefits of integration.
Welcoming the new World Bank strategy, ECOWAS Commission President, Marcel De Souza affirmed that it is well aligned to the priorities of the ECOWAS Commission and its member States especially the focus on priority economic corridors, energy, promoting agricultural value chains, and education and skills development.
“ECOWAS is a leader on several aspects of regional integration, but our people want to see removal of further barriers.
The prize is big – when we allow greater intra-Africa trade in agriculture we can avoid a massive spike in our food import bill while also giving better incomes for our farmers and allowing the food processing industry to create new jobs. The focus on priority economic corridors, energy and promoting agricultural value chains all resonate with what we want to do,” De Souza said.
“Both sides agreed to further deepen the dialogue and collaboration on regional integration and align their efforts,” he said.
