AfDB Grant to Improve Governance of Natural Resource Outflows

ADDIS ABABA – Six African countries will get a $2.8 million grant from the African Development Fund, a concessional lending arm of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group.

The bank on Sunday said the grant will improve governance of natural resource outflows in six “selected fragile and transitional countries”.

Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are the beneficiaries.

The grants, AfDB said, will soon be given through a project designed to “strengthen national capacity for governing natural resource outflows in Africa”.

The project, approved last February, is expected to run until end-2023 and the AfDB’s African Natural Resources Centre is tasked to execute it.

Vanessa Ushie, the Acting Director of the Centre, said natural resources have “the potential to catalyse growth and development in transitional countries”.

“Improved governance of natural resource outflows will support countries’ efforts to achieve sustained recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, help them to better manage their debts, and reposition their economies for the future,” Ushie added.