The Board of the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel meets

The members of the Managing Board of the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel are meeting in the Senegalese capital Dakar to examine projects awaiting funding and those that received funding last year. The foundation’s board is made up of bishops representing the nine countries of the Sahel region: Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

It is currently chaired by Bishop Lucas Kalfa Sanou of Banfora in Burkina Faso. The foundation was established by Pope John Paul II in 1984 after his first trip to Africa four years earlier. The custody of the foundation’s funds, generated on behalf of the Holy Father by the bishops conferences of Italy and Germany, as well as the local churches, was entrusted until recently to the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum,” which is now part of the new Vatican Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development.

Also attending the Feb. 21-25 meeting in Dakar are the secretary of the new decastery Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, as observer of the Holy See and Archbishop Michael Wallace Banach, Apostolic nuncio in Senegal.

In 2016 alone, 43 projects in 6 countries received funding totaling around 550,000 US dollars. As of 2015, the John Paul II foundation for the Sahel had supported some 3.200 projects with funds totaling 37 million US dollars. The projects carried out in the name of the holy father are in the areas of reforestation and agriculture, access to water and renewable energy. In most of the countries, the priority is on technical formation of the young as well as adults in the fields of agriculture and health.

Over the years, the foundation has also promoted inter-religious dialogue as one of its components, since the majority of the beneficiaries are Muslims.