Friday, February 06, 2009

allAfrica.com: Botswana: World Bank Agree P400 Million Anti Income loan.

Botswana yesterday signed a allowance concurrence of P400 million (US$50 million) with the World Bank to brook the country's HIVAIDS interventions. The Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Baledzi Gaolathe, signed the credit on behalf of Botswana with Ruth Kagia, the World Bank nation director. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBDRD) advance is mature in 25 years and it will be utilised to augment funding for the on-going engage against HIV/AIDS with specific limelight to the Botswana National HIV/AIDS Prevention Project.This is the foremost duration in more than 20 years that Botswana has secured a accommodation from the World Bank.



The European Commission has committed itself to verify the 'buy-down" or surrender the loan with a give amounting to P160 million, about (US$20 million), under its four-year Economic Development Framework (EDF) for the era 2010 to 2014. "The procure down will not attack the resources that will generally come Botswana's direction in the scantiness of this World Bank loan," said the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Baledzi Gaolathe, at the signing form in Gaborone yesterday. Gaolathe said the "buy down facility" has only been utilised in China adding that Botswana stands to sake from the sign as the funding will curtail the involve amount effectively to nothing and also give near repaying the principal.

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The project's "buy down" contemplate allows a donor, in this cause the European Commission, to 'buy' the engagement on the loan, essentially making it a no-cost transaction. Botswana's repute as a midriff revenue wilderness precludes it from receiving concessional financing from the World Bank, this place the distress for a financing thingummy specifically tailored to the country's needs. The layout is being looked at as a possibility show to hold up advance efforts in other midway receipts countries. China benefited from a similar, anti-tuberculosis project.



Minister Gaolathe said the agreed activity details for the loan involve "Strengthening the National AIDS Coordinating Agency's (NACA) institutional administration coordination capacity, financing tactical and innovative HIV/AIDS-related barring and mitigation activities. "Since Botswana's more elevated medial gain stature excludes her from the bank's enthusiastically concessional International Development Association resources, oversight requested that the proposed discharge be financed utilising an IBRD buy-down loan ability which involves merging the loan with supplier allocate resources to lower the get of the loan," Gaolathe said. The cleric promised that targets will be met on the accord that the release of donor funds is dependent on the behaviour measured against the jointly agreed indicators undeviating with project objectives and within the outline time frame. For her part, Ruth Kagia, said Botswana's lifetime expectancy would have been 70 years were it not for the HIV/AIDS scourge. "Crisis situations apostrophize for a moment response," said Kagia, who added that 24 percent of the people between the ages of 15 and 49 are HIV positive.




With respect to article: read here


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