News: UN project services office to implement WB financed recovery project in war-torn Tigray
Addis Abeba – The federal government signed “a third-party implementation agreement with the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) to implement World bank financed recovery project in the war torn Tigray regional state, according to the Federal Ministry of Finance.
The project is financed by the World Bank under its “Response-Recovery-Resilience for Conflict-Affected Communities in Ethiopia project,” a grant agreement amounting to US$300 million (ETB 15.6 billion) that the Bank signed with the Ministry of Finance in April this year “to support the reconstruction and recovery efforts of conflict-affected areas in Ethiopia”, more specifically, for projects to be implemented in selected woredas of Amhara, Afar, Tigray, Oromia, and Benishangul Gumuz regional states.
Today’s statement from the Ministry of Finance did not disclose the amount allocated to conduct the recovery projects in Tigray regional state, nor if the implementation of the projects were to be conducted together with the regional state government of Tigray. However, it said that “UNOPS will implement the project in Tigray until situations in Tigray improve to enable the government to implement the project with its own structure in which case, UNOPS will hand over activities to the government.”
WB’s US$300 million grant has two objectives: “rebuilding and improving access to basic services and climate-resilient community infrastructure and improving access to multi-sectoral response services for Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors; in selected conflict-affected communities in Ethiopia.”
Based on the agreement signed with UNOPS, “the agency will implement activities identified under the first objective of the Project in the Tigray region. The second objective of supporting GBV survivors will be implemented by another third-party implementer on which negotiations between the agency and the government are taking place,” the Ministry said.
Accordingly, UNOPS will implement the activities of “providing rapid response services to communities in Tigray consulting the community; reconstruct basic service providing infrastructures affected by the conflict in consultation with the communities; and support community-level social institutions.” AS
