European Union headquarters

The European Union (EU) on Tuesday said that it has allocated 430 million Euros for security and peace building in Africa from 2014 to 2020.

The EU Deputy Head of Delegation in Nigeria and ECOWAS, Richard Young made this known in Abuja at the peace and security conference organised by EU and Institute of Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR)

He pointed out that Africa is experiencing complex security challenges.

“The cost of conflicts around the world is put at approximately 14.3 billion dollars which is about 50 per cent of the world’s GDP; this is enormous.

“If you look at Africa which contributes about 60 per cent to the world population has more than one third of the global conflict.

“We contested with peace and security challenges in Africa, of course the EU has been responding to this, a lot has been committed to the issue of security and defence by the EU,” he said.

The envoy said that the EU had since 2003 given 2.6 billion euro to support peace and security operations in Africa.

“We have earmarked 430 million euros to peace and security in Africa from 2014 to 2020.

“The EU is an all-weather friend in Africa and we are ready to work closely and support Africa in dealing with the issue of peace and security.

“The AU has to take this forward by improving its peace and security operations within the continent and that EU would not walk away but work with the AU in ensuring stability in Africa,” he said.

The Director General of IPCR, Prof. Osita Osita said that the conference was a preparatory forum to aggregate the views of Nigeria on the EU-AU summit coming up in Abidjan on Nov. 30.

Osita said the issue of security is very important to Nigeria as a country and also the thematic issues addressing conflict prevention and not just peace support operation.

“We are interested in focusing on more upstream activities that will deal with the root cause of structural conflict so that we can activate the processes of prevention rather than going for peace support operation.

“Let us find out what are those things that are causing wars and violent conflicts that make us have huge support operation that cost so much money,” he said.