Uganda will receive 45 million Units of Account (UA*), or 'US$ 70.64 million loan to finance its second Community Agricultural Infrastructure Improvement Programme ((CAIIP-II), approved on Wednesday in Tunis by the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF), the concessionary window of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group.
The overall sector goal of the project is to contribute to poverty reduction and economic growth in Uganda through enhanced commercialization of agriculture. Its specific objectives are to enhance farmers' access to markets, attract competitive prices and increased incomes through improvements in rural infrastructures and their management by well mobilized communities.
The project is in keeping with the Bank's response, in the medium term, to the current food crisis in Africa, through the enhancement of agricultural production and productivity by investing in rural infrastructure. The Bank's comparative advantage emanates from its cumulative experience and positive achievements in the course of implementing rural infrastructure projects within its large agricultural portfolio in Uganda.
The CAIIP-II will cover 15 districts in northern and eastern Uganda comprising 65 sub-counties. In addition, it will also cover another 26 districts in the CAIIP-I areas comprising 32 subcounties. The project consists of three components with the following outputs: (i) Rural Infrastructure Improvement (ii) Community Mobilization and (iii) Project Management. The project duration is 5 years commencing from year 2009.
The project will benefit a population of 5.3 million in 1.02 million households (or18.5% of the 2007 projected national population). It is expected to increase the volume of agricultural produce marketed by 45% and increase household incomes by 50% at completion.
The project will be implemented by the districts and sub-counties with oversight from the Project Facilitation Team (PFT). The beneficiary communities will participate in the prioritization of infrastructure which will be most beneficial to them while their capacity will be improved through training and equipping them with tools to enable them to effectively manage operations and maint infrastructure investments in a sustainable manner.
The total project cost is estimated at UA 50.92 million with the Bank contribution accounting for 88.4%. The government will contribute UA 5.11million (10%), while the local communities will provide the remaining UA 0.81million (1.6%) of the total cost of the project.
The Bank Group started operations in Uganda in 1968. To date, the Group's cumulative net commitments in the country stand at US$ 1.73 billion in 105 operations.
* 1 UA = 1.56988 US$ as at 17/09/2008
CONTACT: Felix Njoku - Tel.: +216 7110 26 12 - E-mail: f.njoku@afdb.org
