Supporting the ongoing economic reform in Ethiopia, the French Agency for Development (AFD) is set to provide 100 million euros loan and grant to the government of Ethiopia.
The signing of a loan and a grant agreement will take place at Ministry of Finance of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa on Thursday, June 6th 2019, according to the press statement from the French Embassy in Addis Ababa. It will be signed between Ahmed Shide, Ethiopian Minister of Finance, Mr Ignace Monkam-Daverat, the French Agency for Development (AFD) Country Director and Frederic Bontems, Ambassador of France to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and to the African Union.
The statement indicated that the support is the result of the joint declaration of intent signed between AFD and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia during the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron in Ethiopia on March 12th, 2019.
Through these two agreements, a 100 million euros financing has been provided by AFD to support the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia for the implementation of its ambitious economic reforms. Among this financing, 85 million euros is provided through a Public Policy concessional loan, and 15 million euros is provided as a grant for the global technical assistance programme.
The Public Policy Loan will aim to support the Government of Ethiopia in the implementation of GTP II economic reforms by focusing on the following themes: maximizing finance for development, improving the business environment, and improving the management, transparency and accountability of public enterprises. It will be complementary to the World Bank Ethiopian Growth and Competitiveness Development Policy Financing (DPF).
This Public Policy Loan will be coupled with a grant-funded technical assistance program that would support key reform actors such as the Ministry of Finance, the PPP Directorate General and the Public Enterprise Holding Administration Agency.
Part of this technical assistance programme will be directly implemented by the Ethiopian Government, while another part will be channelled through Expertise France, the French public agency for international technical assistance, and as a contribution to the Multi-Donor Trust Fund managed by the World Bank.
The AFD is the French bilateral development bank, which has been working for more than 70 years implementing French development-aid policy. In 2018, AFD committed for 11.4 billion euros financing worldwide.