Six African countries will soon benefit from a grant from the African Development Fund’s Transitional Support Facility (TSF) as part of an initiative to build national capacity for managing natural resource outflows in Africa.
The African Development Fund is the African Development Bank Group’s concessional lending arm. The Governing Natural Resource Outflows for Enhanced Economic Resilience in Fragile and Transitional Countries (GONAT) project in the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe has been awarded a $2.8 million grant by the Transitional Support Facility. The project was approved in February of this year and will be completed by the end of 2023.
The African Development Bank’s African Natural Resources Centre will implement the initiative, which will expand on the bank’s ongoing work on illicit trade in Africa’s natural resources and resource-backed loans. It will improve the country’s ability to analyze, monitor, and regulate natural resource outflows. In addition, the project will give technical assistance and policy advice to policymakers.
“Natural resources have the potential to catalyze growth and development in transitional countries. Improved governance of natural resource outflows will support countries’ efforts to achieve sustained recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, help them to better manage their debts, and reposition their economies for the future,” said Vanessa Ushie, the Acting Director of the African Natural Resources Centre.
The project contributes to the African Development Bank Group’s policy discussion on sustainable development, which was identified as a strategic priority in the Bank’s most recent capital increase and replenishment of the African Development Fund. By increasing domestic income mobilization from Africa’s natural resource sector, it will contribute to the Bank’s High 5 strategic priorities, the AU’s Agenda 2063, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
