Addis Abeba, June 06/2019 – A signing ceremony of a loan and a grant agreements will take place today at Ministry of Finance 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 Ethiopia and to the African Union, a statement from the French embassy in Addis Abeba said.
“This 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.”
The statement further said that, through these two agreements, a 100 million euros financing has been provided by AFD to support the Ethiopia “for the implementation of its ambitious economic reforms.” Among this financing, 85 million is provided through a Public Policy concessional loan, and 15 million is provided as a grant for the global technical assistance program.
The Public Policy Loan will aim to support the Government of Ethiopia in the implementation of GTP II economic reforms by focusing on “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 program will be directly implemented by the Ethiopian Government, while another part will be channeled 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,”according to the statement.
The Agence Française de Développement (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.