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Donor lobbying conference closes with conflicting figures on pledges

Donor lobbying conference closes with conflicting figures on pledges
Written by Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Thursday, April 09, 2009 8:42:10 PM

THE high level donor lobbying conference for implementation of the North South Corridor investment plan closed on Tuesday with a conflicting figure on pledges received while funding to come from member countries was immediately clear.

Eastern Africa Community (EAC) secretary general Juma Mwapachu, who read the outcome of the two-day meeting held at Mulungushi International Conference Centre, said about US $1.2 million of funding was committed by the development partners for upgrading road, rail, ports and energy infrastructure.

However, the figure was contrary to the US $1.35 million that was announced on the first day of the conference that attracted some high levels financiers like African Development Bank (AfBD), World Bank, United Kingdom's Department For International Development (DFID) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) among others.

The conference agreed that there was need for identification of financing gaps and missing details to channel external finance for North-South Corridor trade facilitation and infrastructure upgrades.

Mwapachu said during the wrap-up of a two-day conference they resolved that there was need to continue to seek additional funding for implementation of identified projects and programmes along the North-South Corridor.

Mwapachu said EAC had agreed a common fund with Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to pool resources from foreign financiers for the development of infrastructure in the region.

"The Tripartite will establish a fund that is able to accept funding from development partners and which can be used to finance identified projects and programmes needed to make the transport corridors in eastern and southern Africa more efficient," Mwapachu said in Lusaka. "The fund shall be hosted at and managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA)."

He said the conference resolved that there was also need to harmonise regulations such as tariff regimes, governance, customs and immigration procedures, transit procedures, vehicle overload control procedures and customs bonds.

The North-South Corridor programme is a model aid for trade programme that has enabled the regional economic blocs of COMESA, EAC and SADC using Aid to Trade to implement an economic corridor-based approach to reduce costs of cross-border trade in the sub-Saharan Africa.

It seeks to improve infrastructure from the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Rwanda and Burundi; the northern corridor from Mombasa in Kenya to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC; and the Lamu - southern Sudan Ethiopia corridor.

The conference was attended among others by President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, South African President Kgalema Motlanthe and Mwai Kibaki of Kenya and host President Rupiah Banda.

Labels: DBSA, DONORS, EAC, JAMA MWAPACHU

posted by MrK @ 7:43 PM