The African Development Fund (ADF), the soft-loan arm of the African Development Bank, has approved debt relief amounting to $8,5-billion to 33 low-income African countries, an ADF statement said on Friday.
Thirteen of these countries will receive immediate debt cancellation as they became immediate beneficiaries of ADF debt relief from January 1 this year, the statement added.
The debt cancellation was made under the fund’s multilateral debt relief to help recipients achieve the Millennium Development Goals, while preserving the ADF’s long-term financing capacity, the statement said.
The latest debt relief was endorsed by the consultative meeting of African finance ministers that took place from November 22 to 23 in Tunis, last year.
The immediate beneficiaries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Mauritania will qualify for the debt relief under the initiative after satisfying criteria on public-expenditure management reforms, the statement said.
The ”actual delivery of the benefits is to be provided retroactively by July 2006 when targets set for the effectiveness thresholds are satisfied,” it noted.
The deadline for receipt of donor financing commitments is by late June, the statement said. — Sapa-dpa