Adeosun signs $60m loan agreement with French development agency

Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun has signed a $60 million loan agreement with French Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Denys Gauer, and deputy director of the French Development Agency (AFD) office in Nigeria, Mr. André Hue.

The amount will be on-lent to the Government of Imo State for the implementation of the Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP II), already implemented in Adamawa, Enugu, Niger and Osun States.

A statement from the French Embassy in Abuja said the agreement signed on Monday this week is to ameliorate the country’s “relatively dense but largely deteriorated road network due to lack of maintenance.”

It observed that “deterioration of the road networks deeply hinders economic activity, particularly in the agricultural sector, which contributes to 40 percent of Nigeria’s GDP and employs more than 50 percent of the population.

“In rural areas, nearly two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line.

“This situation is mainly due to the inaccessibility of these areas, and to the difficulties encountered by farmers in selling their produce in markets.”

It explained that The RAMP and its extension to Imo, which is jointly financed by AFD and the World Bank will make rural areas more accessible and improve transport conditions for their population.

The program aims at reducing poverty in rural areas and boosting the agricultural sector by: developing rural transport infrastructure, which includes the rehabilitation of roads, building of bridges and other river-crossings; – ensuring the maintenance of all rehabilitated roads and support Imo State in setting up pilot maintenance projects; strengthening the project management capacities of administrations, at state level.

This project will allow Imo State to rehabilitate 300 km of rural roads and to build 15 river crossings as well as putting in place an institutional scheme for their maintenance, involving user communities.

AFD in Nigeria has the objectives of supporting a competitive economy that creates jobs and wealth, and to contribute to building a shared and resilient development.

Since its opening in the country in 2008, the Agence Française de Développement has disbursed about $1.3 billion in several sectors such as water, energy, transport and rural development, as well as supporting the private sector.