Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
France financial support to Nigeria in the execution of development projects in 2017 amounts to €415.7m.
In a statement issued yesterday, the French Embassy in Abuja said the amount was part of a holistic key global figure for the public institution’s activity in 2017 with a total of €10.4 billion released by the Agence Française de Dévelopement (AFD) Chief Executive Officer, Rémy Rioux.
The projects include urban water supply in Kano state, Transport Master Plan in Lagos state, guarantees to SMEs, pro-climate infrastructures at regional level and development of sustainable low emission projects in Africa.
The Embassy noted that the amount brings the total financial commitments of AFD in Nigeria and ECOWAS from 2010 to more than €1.5 billion with over 30 projects. On the Impacts of the projects in Nigeria, the Embassy said since AFD started its operations in Nigeria in 2008, 1.8 million people have benefited from improved electricity service, more than two million people had access to improved water service, 260,000 travelers a day benefit from an average travel time reduction of 35 minute per trip, nearly 2,000 km of rehabilitated rural roads and 11,230 tons of grain purchased to deal with food crises in West Africa.
It said its activities were in line with the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and AFD’s “All-Africa” Strategy, the AFD Country Intervention Strategy for Nigeria recently revised for the years 2017 – 2021.
“AFD is consequently continuing to increase the volume of its financing, in line with the Presidential commitment, an increase confirmed by the decisions of the Inter-ministerial Committee for International Cooperation and Development (CICID) of February 8, 2018,” it said.