African Development Fund gives US $696,000 for management project

The African Development Fund (ADF), a soft loan arm of the African Development Bank, has approved a US $696,000-grant to finance an economic management capacity building support project for the Republic of Congo, the fund announced on Wednesday. It said the project's goal was to strengthen the capacity to formulate and implement economic policies in the country. "The project aims to consolidate macroeconomic projections, with emphasis on the development of human resources, improvement of procedures and the provision of working tools," it reported. It said that armed conflicts in 1997 and 1998 had seriously affected the country's economic and social situation, resulting in a "profound" deterioration of institutional capacity. "ADF’s intervention gives priority to capacity building for investment planning and debt monitoring and management," it said. "It will lay emphasis on macroeconomic management, particularly public investment planning and public debt management."