World Bank Pledges $1B Aid For Central African Peace

Written by Dana Sanchez

May 23, 2013

World Bank this week promised $1 billion in aid for Africa’s Great Lakes region contingent on peace, even as war erupted in a region troubled for decades.

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced the proposed aid this week for one of Africa’s most war-torn areas during a trip with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

“This funding will help revitalize economic development, create jobs, and improve the lives of people who have suffered for far too long,” Kim said in a prepared statement.

The tour coincided with new clashes between Congo’s army and M23 rebels near Goma on the border with Rwanda. At least 20 people have been killed this week, according to Reuters.

The aid is intended to provide better health and education, generate more cross-border trade, and fund hydroelectricity projects in support of the U.N.-brokered Great Lakes peace agreement signed by 11 countries in February, according to World Bank.

“We believe this can be a major contributor to a lasting peace in the Great Lakes region,” Ban said in a statement Wednesday. “This funding will help revitalize economic development, create jobs, and improve the lives of people who have suffered for far too long.”

The biggest portion of the aid, $340 million, is earmarked for an 80-megawatt hydroelectric project in Rusumo Falls intended to ease chronic electricity blackouts in Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania, Reuters said. Another $100 million will go to support agriculture and rural livelihoods for displaced people and refugees; $150 million to rehabilitate the Ruzizi I and II hydroelectric projects and financing for Ruzizi III, supplying electricity for Rwanda, Burundi and DRC; $165 million toward building roads in DRC’s North and South Kivu and Province Orientale; $180 million for improving infrastructure and border management along the Rwanda-DRC border; and additional millions for health clinics, fisheries and trade facilitation programs among others, according to World Bank.