THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK HAS OPENED FLOOD GATES OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR ZAMBIA FOLLOWING DEBT RESTRUCTURING
By Alexander Nkosi
After reaching an agreement for bilateral debt restructuring with official creditors, the flood gates of economic opportunities have officially opened with a high powered delegation from African Development Bank, led by its President Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, visiting Zambia.
African Development Bank has 25 projects across sectors in Zambia worth USD1.1 billion. During the meeting with President Hakainde Hichilema and senior government officials, Dr. Adesina announced the following opportunities that have been unlocked for Zambia:
1. Technical Advisory Support in – Public Financial Management, Public Debt Management and Public Investment Management.
2. African Legal Facility to help restructuring the remainder of the debt and significantly reduce the burden.
3. Budget support of between USD100 million to USD150 million
4. Commercial borrowing window of USD336 million
5. A concessional borrowing window that can be leveraged to work on key regional projects that benefit Zambia. The initial projects are:
a) Angola, Congo DR and Zambia railway line under the Lobito corridor project.
b) Mozambique Zambia Power Transmission project.
Beyond these two, other projects include: railway lines and pipelines in the Nacala and Beira trade corridor, Power Interconnections with Congo DR, Tanzania and the Great Lakes region. These would enable Zambia export power in view of the on-going USD2 billion British Consortium power projects and more in the pipeline.
6. The African Development Bank also committed to send a team of technical experts to support in preparation of bankable projects that would help Zambia access funding under the African Investment Forum which has attracted over USD100 billion in investment interests since its inception in 2018.
7. The African Development Bank also committed to support Zambia in asset recycling which would help free up resources for other impactful investments.
8. Support in making the Comprehensive Agriculture Transformation Programme more impactful as Zambia transitions from FISP and broadens support to farmers beyond inputs to focus on agriculture extension, finance, mechanisation, marketing, processing and overall production and business management.
9. Support Zambia in derisking lending to the agriculture sector by commercial banks through a special derisk facility offered by the African Development Bank. This is working well in a number of countries.
10. Support setting up of Special Agro-processing Zones that would enable production and food processing within the zones with all necessary production infrastructure and facilities established. This would complement the USD300 million World Bank funding to farm blocks project.
11. The African Development Bank urged the President to set up a Presidential Delivery Council to accelerate the Dakar 2 Country Food and Agriculture Delivery Compact. The African Development Bank has mobilised USD72 billion for African countries to implement this. This can possibly sit under the already existing Presidential Delivery Unity- Agriculture portfolio.
12. Support various Power generation projects such as solar projects.
13. Support ZESCO to clear its arrears and debt so as to run smoothly and attract more investments in the energy sector. With high power deficit in the region, this is of great interest to the African Development Bank as it would benefit a lot of countries in the region.
Thank you.