Tunis — The African Development Bank (ADB) Group has earmarked more than 500 million US dollars in 2005 for the financing of new projects within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, (NEPAD).
The proposed funding is in line with the Bank's efforts to accelerate the development of sub-regional and regional infrastructure, which, along with banking and financial standards within the APRM framework, constitute two key areas in which the ADB has been assigned a leadership role under NEPAD.
The projects in the transport, energy and water sectors will be discussed at the 7-8 March 2005 workshop of Regional Economic Communities (RECs) called to review NEPAD project implementation and to be chaired by President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abuja.
The Abuja meeting will "explore and agree on mechanisms and actions including RECs capacity building, to speed up the implementation of key NEPAD projects," according to the chief executive of NEPAD Secretariat, Prof. Wiseman Nkuhlu.
The expected outputs of the workshop are:
q Action Plan for building the necessary capacity for RECs and other relevant institutions for the implementation of the identified priority NEPAD projects within the agreed timeframe;
q Definition of responsibilities on priority projects among the various stakeholders, -- RECs, AU Commission, NEPAD Secretariat, donors and other development partners -- to ensure implementation takes place according to the Action Plan;
q Action Plan for the establishment of REC project task teams to oversee implementation of key and priority projects in each REC, with defined target dates for implementation; and
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q Definition of responsibilities among the various stakeholders to ensure that the teams are established as planned.
The workshop sessions will be led by Messrs George Taylor-Lewis, Director of Country Operations Department and head of the NEPAD Unit of the African Development Bank; Bernard Zoba, Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy of the African Union; Ibn Chambas, Executive Secretary of the ECOWAS and Tunji Olagunju, Chairperson, of the NEPAD Steering Committee.
The Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) meeting held in Algiers last year stressed the need to fast track the implementation of key NEPAD.
Since 2002, the ADB has financed 12 projects and 8 studies under NEPAD's Short Term Action Plan (STAP) for a total of US $ 520 million The Bank has also mobilised more than US$1.6billion in co-financing of these projects.
