The African Development Bank Group has made project approvals of approximately USD 3.45 billion, or Units of Account (UA) 2.27 billion, during the year 2012 so far. In total, 52 projects were approved up to 18 July 2012.
The African Development Bank part of the Group made approvals totalling some UA 1.055 billion, or about USD 1.6 billion. while the African Development Fund (ADF), the Group's concessional or 'soft loan' arm was the source of finance for UA 943.6 million or USD 1.43 billion worth of project approvals.
The remaining approvals were made by other sources of funding within the Group such as the Nigeria Trust Fund, the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), the Fragile States Facility and the Congo Basin Forest Fund.
The public sector accounted for just over USD 956 million of the Bank's approvals, while private sector approvals from the Bank totalled just over USD 638 million Of approvals made by the ADF, USD 852.4 million were made in the form of loans while USD 579.5 million were funded as grants.
Infrastructure projects accounted for the largest approvals. The largest project approval so far for 2012 is the Integrated Wind/Hydro and Rural Electrification Programme in Morocco, which is funded by a loan of €359 million from the Bank and a further loan of USD 125 million from the CIF.
Another major infrastructure project approval in Morocco during 2012 was the first phase of the Ouarzazate Solar Power Station project, funded by a loan of €168 million from the Bank and a CIF loan of USD 100 million. Another large infrastructure project was in Tanzania, where there was an ADF loan approval of UA 140 million for the Road Sector Support Project II.