IMF approves poverty reduction loan

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year US $17.8 million loan to Uganda, praising the East African country for the progress it has made towards reducing poverty. "The Ugandan authorities are to be commended for the continued implementation of sound macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, which have helped to sustain high economic growth rates with inflation," Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair of the IMF, Shigemitsu Sugisaki, said in a statement. The Ugandan government will be able to draw about US $1.9 million from the fund immediately under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), the IMF's concessional lending arm. According to the IMF, a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy pursued by the Ugandan authorities resulted in the incidence of poverty in Uganda falling from 56 percent in 1992, to 35 percent in 2000. "This strong economic performance, combined with determined implementation of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy, contributed to a substantial decline in the incidence of poverty in Uganda over the past decade," Sugisaki said. Although the Ugandan economy had performed "relatively well" during 2001-2002 achieving a 5.7 percent growth, Uganda would still continue to rely heavily on donor assistance, the IMF said. The UN Human Development Report for 2002 ranks Uganda 150th out of 173 countries, and reports that it is "far behind" in attempts to reach the Millennium Development Goal of halving by 2015 the proportion of people suffering from hunger.