ADB gives loan approval for reforms and projects

The African Development Bank (ADB) announced on Wednesday that it had approved loans totalling more than US $24 million for a range of economic and rural development interventions in three West African countries: Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire and Guinea. The bank approved a loan of about US $20.1 million to finance a rural water supply project in Guinea. It is intended to provide drinking water to the villages of Dabola and Faranah in the center of the country, Kankan and Kouroussa in the east, and Siguiri in the northeast. Some 1,100 modern water points equipped with manual pumps and six small drinking water supply solar-powered systems are to be installed, in the hope of providing at least 10 litres of water per capita per day in these areas by the year 2005, according to a press release from the bank. Five thousand family and 200 public latrines will also be constructed, it said. In Cape Verde, the ADB has approved the provision of $3.3 million to finance the Economic Reforms Support Programme (ERSP II), which aims to strengthen macro-economic balances, finalise the privatisation of public enterprises, help reduce poverty and promote good governance. The ERSP II is geared towards helping consolidate reforms initiated under a first phase of economic reform between 1997 and 2000, which was also co-financed by the ADB to the tune of about $4 million. For the southeastern forest region of Agneby in Cote d'Ivoire, the bank approved a grant of about $1.1 million for a study to identify growth-led development options that are best adapted to the ecological conditions of that region. It is also hoped that development options identified through the study will promote the utilisation of available water and land resources, agricultural production and livestock, private sector participation and environmental protection.