Tunis, June 2, 2009 - The Republic of Chad will receive a grant of 31.61 million Units of Account (UA*), about US$ 47.34 million, approved on Tuesday in Tunis by the Executive Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF), the concessionary window of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group.
The Koumra-Sarh Road Development Project is designed to improve the efficacy of the transport logistic chain, the movement of goods and people in the southern part of Chad (Mandoul and Moyen-Chari), reduce transport cost and open up the country.
The project will involve the development and tarring of the 110-km Koumra-Sarh section, carrying out related works and specific actions for women; inspecting and supervising the work; and providing support for project management, monitoring-evaluation, as well as auditing accounts.
In addition to the main road, related structures will be constructed to strengthen the project's socio-economic impact, including the development of 111 km of feeder roads; rehabilitating social infrastructure; and constructing a fence round the plot of the Mandoul Women's Shea Promotion Cooperative (COFEMAK), and supplying the necessary equipment to operate the water tower built with UNDP support, providing equipment to 30 women's groups with carts for transportation purposes, and constructing a fence and rehabilitating the Sarh nursery school.
The project is in line with the Bank's 2008-2012 medium-term strategy which gives priority to infrastructure, governance, private sector development, higher education, technical education and vocational training. The strategy underscores the need to channel a considerable portion of available resources to infrastructure, transport, energy, as well as the new information and communication technologies (NICT).
It is consistent with the Bank's operational strategy in Chad, as stated in the 2005-2009 Results-Based Country Strategy Paper (RBCSP), which focuses on the promotion of good governance through support for policy-based reforms and institutional capacity building, including managing of oil resources; and supporting sustainable growth in non-oil sectors through infrastructure development and the exploitation of natural resources.
The road runs through 4 departments with an estimated 202,000 inhabitants in the Mandoul and Moyen-Chari regions. In addition, the project's direct impact area has a population of about one million inhabitants. The project's economic impacts will indirectly affect the country's entire Sudanese region, which covers a total area of 130,000 km2 and home to an estimated population of 3.5 million inhabitants.
The construction of the road will provide the missing link on the Moundou-Sarh corridor, since the Moundou-Doba and Doba-Koumra sections jointly financed by the European Development Fund (EDF) and Chad, are in progress. It will eventually link N'Djamena to Sarh and open up the country, especially the south-eastern oil-producing region of Doba, the country's bread basket. It will also facilitate the transportation of agricultural surpluses to the rest of the country, especially N'Djamena, and will encourage the population of the project area (PA) to produce more, thus contributing to greater food security in the country.
The total project cost is estimated at UA 56.17 million or CFAF 42.76 billion. The project will be jointly financed by the ADF (UA 31.61 million), EDF (UA 1.96 million) and the Chadian government (UA 22.60 million).
UA 1 = 1.49783 US$ as at 02/06/2009
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Felix Njoku
