World Bank, Ethiopia sign 300 mln USD financing accord to fund recovery of conflict-affected areas

ADDIS ABABA, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government and the World Bank have signed a financing agreement amounting to 300 million U.S. dollars in support of the reconstruction and recovery of conflict-affected areas of Ethiopia.

The 300 million U.S. dollars financing accord, which was made in the form of a grant, was signed by Ethiopia's Minister of Finance Ahmed Shide and the World Bank's country representative to Ethiopia Ousmane Dione, the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance disclosed in a statement issued Monday.

The resource will be used to finance activities designed to support communities in conflict-affected areas to re-access basic services of education, health and water supply, according to the ministry.

The ministry said the funding will include special support to survivors of gender-based violence within the areas affected by conflict. The fund, in particular, will finance activities of rebuilding and improving access to basic services and community infrastructure and support the strengthening of short and medium-term gender-based violence response services for the survivors in the targeted regions.

The project will be implemented in selected districts of Ethiopia's conflict-affected Amhara, Afar, Tigray, Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz regional states, the ministry said.

The ministry added that in high conflict areas, the project will be implemented by a selected third-party institution on behalf of the Ethiopian government based on an agreement with the government.