Tunis — Cote d'Ivoire will receive a grant of 20 million Units of Account (UA*), about US$ 31.43 million, approved on Wednesday in Tunis by the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF), the concessional window of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, to finance a Post-Crisis Multisector Institutional Support Project in the country.
The project aims at the restoration of the operations of public services in the areas of education, health and rural development in the Central, Western and Northern regions of the country hit by the crisis, as well as capacity building for public structures and civil society organizations in the management of emergency and economic recovery issues.
The Activities proposed under the project will include the training and retraining of some 12,500 state employees (teachers, nursing staff and social service and production supervision officers) and about 260 cooperatives and grassroots organizations.
The project will have beneficial effects on the conditions of teaching for nearly 45 000 primary school pupils and will improve conditions in the area of maternal and child health in 33 built-up quarters in the target areas. It will support the establishment of 4 centres for the psychosocial management of victims of the crisis in particular the gender based violence as well as improve incomes in the regions though labour-intensive minor rehabilitation works and the multiplier effects of the redeployment of more than 11,000 civil servants.
The overall cost of the programme is estimated at UA 362 million. The ADF grant represents 6% of the total cost of the programme. The Ivorian government will finance 18% of the programme while contributions of other donors, notably the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Union, United Nations agencies and bilateral partners, will cover other programme needs.
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Côte d'Ivoire has been in crisis since 2002, resulting in the loss of lives, the exodus of nearly 1.7 million people, including AfDB staff following the temporary relocation of the Bank from its statutory headquarters in Abidjan to Tunis. The crisis also resulted in massive destruction of economic and social infrastructure as well as administrative dysfunction. After many failed peace agreements and initiatives, the Ouagadougou Political Accord (OPA) signed on 4 March 2007 has created a new political dynamism.
The institutional support project is in line with ADF X guidelines on intervention in countries under sanction for non-payment of arrears as well as with the orientations defined in the 2007-2008 Dialogue Paper.
The Bank Group commenced operations in Cote d'Ivoire in 1968. To date the Bank has committed a total of US$ 1. 87 billion in 60 operations in the country.
* UA 1 = US$ 1.59018 = XOF 706.6497 as at 5 /12/2007
