YAOUNDE, Cameroon, April 25, 2024 -/African Media Agency (AMA)/-Leader of Central African development partners for infrastructure, the African Development Bank Group is the main development institution supporting Cameroon in the realization of major transformative projects, particularly in transport infrastructure.
More than 50% of the Bank Group’s portfolio in Cameroon, for example, is devoted to transport infrastructure financing. Thus, the Bank’s financing made it possible to connect Cameroon to the Congo thanks to the two phases of the Ketta-Djoum road construction project for an amount of 173 million dollars. Another example, the Bank also contributed to connecting Cameroon to Nigeria through the Bamenda-Enugu road construction project and the construction of the Cross River bridge, inaugurated in October 2022. The Bank Group’s contribution to the financing of this project is 120 million dollars. The construction of the bridge over the Logone River, financed to the tune of $115 million, which started in 2020, should make it possible to connect northern Cameroon to Chad. The Ntem River bridge construction project approved in 2023 for an amount of $80 million will connect Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
Cameroon’s connection to its neighbors, notably Congo, Chad, Nigeria and Gabon, through the construction of cross-border roads and bridges, facilitates regional integration. More than 2.5 million direct jobs, 40% of which for women, have been created as part of these projects which improve the efficiency of the transport logistics chain along the corridors and the accessibility of populations to transport services. base.
The Bank’s interventions “radically change the appearance of the regions”, rejoiced on April 8, 2024, the Cameroonian Minister of Economy, Planning and Regional Development Ousmane Alamine Mey, also Governor of the Bank for Cameroon.
Several members of the Cameroonian government also shared this assessment with Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade, the Bank’s Vice-President in charge of Regional Development, Integration and Service Delivery during her recent trip to the region. Staying in Yaoundé for the official inauguration on April 12 of the regional office of the African Development Bank Group for Central Africa, Marie-Laure Akin-Olugbade met Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute as well as Mr. Mey and his colleagues from Finance, Louis-Paul Motaze, and from Public Works, Emmanuel Nganou Djoumessi.
In 2011, the Bank also provided financial and technical support for the construction of the Lom Pangar and Nachtigal dams for an amount of $60 million. The construction of the hydroelectric dam made it possible to inject 1,153 GWH into the interconnected network in southern Cameroon, providing access to electricity to more than 100,000 additional households.
The Bank is the only development institution that continues to intensively carry out operations in the Cameroonian regions of the Far North, North West and South West, plagued by security challenges. These regions, including the East, are the Bank’s priorities in Cameroon for the next five years.
These projects include, among others:
- the Cameroon-Chad electricity network interconnection project financed for $240.86 million,
- the Territorial planning project for the Far North region financed to the tune of $215.8 million,
- the study and preparation project for a drinking water supply and sanitation program worth $5.72 million,
- the Ring Road Project worth $241.6 million,
- the Regional Road Network Integrator Project in the Lake Chad Basin financed for $48.8 million,
- the Integrated Program for Development and Adaptation to Climate Change in the Niger Basin financed for $9 million.
A sign of continued strengthening of their cooperation, the Bank Group signed on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of its regional office, a financing agreement of 203 million euros with the Cameroonian government for the implementation of the Project for territorial planning and promotion of the private sector in the Far North region. This project, which will benefit more than four million people, will contribute to regional planning, improvement of the transport system and the promotion of the private sector with a view to the emergence of an integrated and sustainable development pole. in the Far North of the country. This region is a buffer zone between the Sahel and Central Africa and constitutes a real sub-regional crossroads between three of the four countries of the Lake Chad basin (Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad) and is suffering the effects of major crises, distinct but closely related. “The Bank is a very great partner for Cameroon and I am delighted that its interventions correspond to the strategic needs of our country,” said the Minister of Public Works. “The African Development Bank’s projects have significant impacts on our populations,” added his finance colleague.
“We intend to be bolder, to move faster, to be more effective in our various interventions in Cameroon,” Ms. Akin-Olugbade pledged. Because lives are at stake.” She also indicated that the Bank Group might increase its interventions in urban planning and digitalization, “We can double the country portfolio in the next five years,” a- she asserted.
During the hearings, the Vice-President and her interlocutors reviewed the Bank’s portfolio for Cameroon which included 26 projects as of 1is April 2024 for commitments of approximately $2.5 billion. The main sectors of concentration are: transport (56.5%), energy (20.4%) and agriculture (10.5%).
Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute praised, during the inauguration of the Bank’s regional office for Central Africa, “at its true value” the support of the African Development Bank in integrative projects in Central Africa.
The vice-president also held a meeting of the “Big 5”, a platform for coordinating the actions of Cameroon’s main technical and financial partners including, in addition to the African Development Bank, the French Development Agency, the World Bank, the Fund international monetary union and the European Union. Their discussions focused on structuring socio-economic reforms and how to improve the efficiency of investment projects in the country.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) for the African Development Bank
Source : African Media Agency (AMA)
2024-04-25 10:39:46
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