New York, United States — The World Bank has approved various credits worth 94.6 million US dollars for projects in Rwanda, Mozambique and Lesotho.
Rwanda gets a 48-million-dollar credit to assist the government to revitalise the country's rural economy.
The bank explained that the Rural Sector Support Project, planned to run for 14 years, will focus on the rehabilitation of farmed marsh land and hillside areas; promote commercial and export agriculture; support agricultural services delivery systems and help in upgrading small scale rural infrastructure development.
The money will also help in the promotion of off-farm productive activities in rural areas and support the whole project and the co-ordination of all its components.
Mozambique's credit of 18 million dollars is intended to support the building of national capacity for mineral resources management.
Elements of the project include improvement of legal and regulatory reform; building institutional capacity for effective enforcement of laws and regulations; development of data bank and geological maps; strengthening of institutional capacity for environmental management and identification and adoption of appropriate mechanisms to increase revenues and improve the quality of life in mining areas.
Lesotho's 28.6-million-dollar credit will be used to improve the business infrastructure such as telecommunications and electricity services.
The project's objectives include attraction of foreign private capital, new technology and management to the electricity sector; reform of the regulatory system to ensure fair and transparent treatment of sectoral operators and a study of the country's future options in hydro-electric power.
The project will also establish an investment fund to support private sector development; provide advisory services and capacity building and assist the government to implement, monitor and evaluate project implementation.
All the credits are provided through the bank's International Development Association that lends to the poorest countries on soft terms, including a 10-year grace period and maturity of 40 years.
