EU to Invest 27 Million Euros in Health and Energy in Belize

Nicolaus Hansmann

On Thursday, we reported on the closing of the European Union’s two million Euros funded project in the banana belt. It is one of the many projects that the EU has funded in the agriculture sector, along with projects in the sugar and citrus industries. But moving forward, they will be focusing their investments on energy and health. Nicolaus Hansmann says that the EU has signed an agreement for twenty-seven million Euros, which will be invested in these two new sectors. As Hansmann explained on Thursday, their investments in the banana sector alone have far reaching impacts but the time has come to spread some of those benefits.

Nicolaus Hansmann, Team Leader, EU Technical Office, Belize

“Already fifteen years, twenty years ago, the European Union has supported the banana sector with substantial monies and the on-going banana agreements, bumps as we call them, another twenty-two million Euros. Even though, and with very good reasons and justified, probably half of these funds benefit the region of the banana belt from Hopkins – to health centers, drinking water, roads, technical vocational trainings, electricity. A very important portion of this grant money from the European Union has gone to the banana farm to strengthen their sector and through that increase revenue for the country, prestige for the country and even food for the country and consolidate a sector of private sector enterprises and commercial strategies. The European Union in its future activities is not anymore supporting directly to the agriculture sector – banana, sugar, citrus in the past or such projects but more on energy and health. These activities will also benefit these communities here; the banana farmers and will bring back for inaugurations and closures over many years. So, this new agreement signed at a total value of twenty-seven million Euros – ten for health; fourteen for energy and some other monies for civil society activities and so on.”