BOTSWANA – The government of Botswana is set to receive US$179.66m loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to support the state’s reforms to restore post-pandemic fiscal stability and economic recovery.
The funds for phase II of the program will build on the successes of the first phase by supporting policy measures designed to boost economic recovery, further ease private sector participation in the economy and promote climate-smart agriculture and industrial development.
These include various revenue enhancing measures, establishment of a public procurement regulatory authority and facilitation of public private partnerships.
The program will also propel private sector-led agriculture and industrial transformation. It will achieve this through the approval of a national policy on agricultural development and transformation, creation of a meat industry regulator and improvement of the investment facilitation regime.
To enhance resilience and social inclusion, the program will strengthen the policy framework for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), promote the adoption of a technical and vocational training policy and roll out of a single social registry.
The program will directly benefit several government ministries, departments and agencies, alongside MSMEs in agriculture and manufacturing.
The initiative aligns with the Bank Group’s Ten-Year Strategy (2013-2022) and its High Five strategic priorities, particularly Industrialize Africa and Improve the quality of life of the people of Africa.
In other related news, the African Development Fund, the concessional lending arm of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a US$12 million grant to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to implement the Financial Sector Development and Inclusion Support Project in the country.
The funding will support financial sector reforms in the country and improve financial inclusion for rural and vulnerable populations – especially women and youth – as well as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Specifically, the project will help mobilize long-term resources by supporting the creation of a national development bank and a stock exchange as well as expanding the market for government securities.
It will also encourage financial inclusion by supporting the interoperability of payment services and improving the technical and operational capacity of microfinance institutions and other electronic money issuers.
Setting up a payment incident center and strengthening the capacity of payment system regulators and supervisors will bolster the country’s financial stability. Project activities will be carried out with a view to increasing the resilience of the financial sector and reducing poverty in the DRC.
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