Share & more
A consultative group of financial partners of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as the Paris Club, began a meeting on Thursday in the capital, Kinshasa, to evaluate the government's achievements with a view to providing another US $7 billion that the Congolese authorities have requested.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund lead the Paris Club meeting. It is an informal group of official creditors whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor nations.
Opening the meeting of the donors with the government, President Joseph Kabila recalled the efforts Congolese leaders have been making to reunify the country, stabilise the monetary exchange rate and keep inflation under control.
"I call on our partners to take into account the government's efforts, so that their engagements can be translated into a real disbursement," Kabila said.
He said his government had reduced the rate of inflation from 24 percent to 4.4 percent in three years, after several years of monetary instability.
Kabila also said the government would, during this meeting, present a new programme for financing to help revamp the country's economy.
Congolese Economic Minister Emile Ngoy Kasongo said the government's priorities included the revamping of the transport, energy, health and education sectors that had reached an advanced state of degradation.
Ngoyi has said the Congo's financial partners have already disbursed close to $1 billion and have promised to release another $3 billion for the programme over the next two years.
Donors seem equally satisfied by the economic progress the government has made. The director of operations for central Africa at the World Bank, Emmanuel Mbi, said despite the social and economic challenges, the government had made economic progress under this programme, which ends in December.
"It was extremely difficult for the country to rebound from 10 years of conflict and from 20 years of bad management," Mbi said.
On Friday, the donors are due to examine, with the Congolese government, the financing of the elections due in 2005.
According to humanitarian organisations, more than 3.7 million people have died during the five-year war and more than 3 million have been displaced.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
