Dollars
The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group says it provided a total of US$211.6 million in grants and loans to support Ghana’s development in 2012.
The amount represented the highest level of support the country has received from the bank within a year since the group began operations in Ghana in 1973.
To date, the group has financed 105 loans and grants to Ghana valued at approximately US$3.755 billion. The projects covered mainly transport, energy, agriculture, water and sanitation, education, health and multi-sector.
Last year, the group said it approved four projects which were aimed at assisting Ghana to achieve its development objectives as outlined in the country’s Shared Growth & Development Agenda.
These involved a US$76.5 million in financing approved for the Rural Enterprises Programme III (REP III), which aims to assist the Government of Ghana to scale up the impact and outcome of REP I and II in response to Ghana’s Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA), which focused on inclusive growth, youth employment, and women’s economic empowerment.
REP III will be implemented in 161 of the country’s 170 rural districts and is expected to create 100,000 new jobs among other benefits.
The second project touched on the Ghana Institutional Support Programme (GISP), which received US$14.5 million in bank funding and aims at enhancing the capacity of selected institutions in both the private and public sector.
The programme is expected to strengthen the non-tax revenue mobilization framework, enhance the capacity of the Private Enterprise Foundation, National Board of Small Scale Industries and the Ghana Stock Exchange to support small and medium enterprises and enhance capacity in financial sector policy formulation.
The third project involved the Development of Skills for Industry Project (DISP) and the TICO Phase II, which attracted US $120 million and US $60,000, respectively to support quality intermediate level, technical and vocational training skills needed to foster increased productivity and consequently economic growth to reduce poverty in Ghana.
Additionally, the support to TICO, a power company operating in the Western region, will finance the expansion of the Takoradi Thermal Power Plant (TTPP).
The funding will enable TICO to expand its existing T2 Unit, currently at 220 megawatts to its final capacity of 330 megawatts, through the addition of a steam turbine to convert it to combined-cycle operation.
These approved projects are aligned to the bank’s new Country Strategy Paper (CSP), which was approved in June 2012. The CSP forms the basis for the African Development Bank Group’s operations in Ghana for the period 2012-2016 and it is based on two pillars: namely improving productivity in Ghanaian enterprises and supporting economic and structural reforms aimed at improving the business environment.
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