United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Tuesday that the US would grant an additional $45 million to West African countries as part of a campaign to combat instability, bringing total financing under the year-old initiative to roughly $300 million.
Blinken met separately with Presidents Bola Tinubu and Alassane Ouattara of the Ivory Coast on Tuesday as part of a four-nation tour of African democratic countries.
The tour was intended to address US-African collaboration on trade, climate, infrastructure, health, security, and other concerns. It follows a conference of African leaders in Washington in December 2022.
Blinken sought progress against coups and radicalism in West Africa during conversations with two prominent presidents, citing Ivory Coast as an example.
While in Abidjan, Blinken hailed Ivory Coast’s stand against last year’s coup in Niger and its approach of “building security together” by investing economically to combat extremism in northern areas bordering Mali and Burkina Faso.
“I have to applaud the approach that’s been taken by Cote d’Ivoire – working with communities, listening to communities, making sure that their security forces understand the needs, the concerns of communities,” Blinken said alongside Ouattara.
“I think that can serve as a very powerful model for other countries,” he added.
“We spent a lot of time discussing mutual security challenges,” Blinken said. “We appreciate Ivory Coast’s leadership in the fight against extremism and violence.”
“We have increased military training by 15 times and are investing in civil protection in Ivory Coast,” Blinken added, according to Reuters.
Blinken promised to boost cooperation on the ground with Ivory Coast, largely through training of its security forces.
Last year was marred by security challenges in Africa including a major coup that toppled democratic leadership in Niger. This is just as terrorists also continue to strike in Nigeria such as the Christmas Eve killing of close to 200 people in Plateau and most recently the kidnapping epidemic plaguing the country.