The European Union announced it would provide the Niger government a €470 million facility to support in efforts to implement reforms and bolster its capacities in education, nutrition, food security, etc.

Besides this financing, the emergency trust fund for Africa has approved this year the injection of €140 million in nine projects in Niger.

The European Union in a statement said the funding was to support projects which are part of the La Valette action plan. “This is about fighting human trafficking, improving border management and tackling the roots of illegal migration, by providing better economic alternatives. It’s also about contributing to the protection and assistance of returning migrants, to the reinforcement of authorities and local municipalities’ skills, as well as to making populations of the Lake Chad basin region more resilient,” said the statement, reports website Niamey et les 2 Jours.

It is important to recall that the facility comes amid a conflict involving the Niamey-Algiers route and where a group of sub-Saharan migrants were rounded up in Algeria, expulsed and sent to Niger, in conditions that organizations for human rights protection denounced.

Aaron Akinocho