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afrol.com, 12 July - The African Development Bank Group has approved debt relief amounting to US$ 104.4 million to Mauritania (this amounts to US$ 72.75 million in net present value terms) as part of the package of US$ 1.1 billion in debt relief from its external creditors. Mauritania is one of the first two countries to receive debt relief from the Bank Group under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative, with US$ 85 million being released to support poverty reduction during the first ten years.
At a meeting in Paris on June 30, 2000, Deputies representing State Participants in the African Development Fund (ADF) assured the Bank Group's effective participation in the program through pledges of adequate financial support. This ensures that the Bank Group will be in a position to meet its share of debt relief to eligible countries.
Mauritania’s HIPC assistance is in recognition of its comprehensive program of economic stabilisation and structural reforms that has been implemented since 1985. The country’s macroeconomic performance has improved steadily since the mid-1990s, with the real annual growth rate averaging 4.7 percent.
Progress on the macroeconomic front has been complemented by wide ranging policy reforms in the social and economic sectors, and a strong emphasis on poverty reduction. Mauritania’s policy reforms were supported by the Bank Group which provided concessional resources to support economic reform, in addition to a number of sector investment and project loans. The Bank Group’s Enhanced HIPC assistance will support the country’s poverty reduction programme, as outlined in its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.
Only on 7 July, Mauritania obtained a US $1.54 million grant from the ADF to finance a multisector institutional support project. That project is to contribute to capacity building for the formulation and implementation of development strategies and programmes.
It specifically seeks to develop and consolidate the public investment projects programming, implementation and monitoring instruments, while focusing on training and human resource development as well as the improvement of functional links between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Development and the technical departments so as to ensure greater consistency between the macro-economic and sectoral forecasts.
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