According to a statement sent to VerAngola, the French ambassador to Angola, Daniel Vosgien, the AFD Regional Director for Southern Africa, Bruno Deprince, and the Director of AFD in Angola, Louis-Antoine Souchet.
This support - of 200 million euros - concerns "a loan based on public policies, which aims to support the implementation of structural reforms undertaken by the Angolan Government to strengthen the country's macroeconomic framework, making it less vulnerable to economic shocks and safer for international investors".
According to the note, AFD intends to reinforce this support "in close consultation with the Ministry of Finance and its multilateral partners, in order to provide the most efficient support possible".
This support is accompanied by a technical assistance program, in the global amount of 7.5 million euros, resulting from donations from France and the European Union, in the amount of 2.5 million euros and 5 million euros respectively.
"The program will mobilize French expertise, through the AFD group's subsidiary for technical cooperation, Expertise France, with the aim of establishing very concrete bilateral cooperation on these issues, in a spirit of collaboration between peers", the note said.
Thus, the actions included in the project matrix are divided into four components: support for public finance management reform and public management transparency; support for public enterprise governance reform; operationalization and safeguarding of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and support for financial sector reform.
Project management will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance. Other entities, such as the Ministry of Economy and Planning and the National Bank of Angola will be supported by the project's technical assistance.
The statement said that the granting of this loan will be AFD's first budget support operation in Angola.
"Within the scope of strengthening cooperation between France and Angola, supporting the Angolan Government's policy of reforms for the country's economic and financial transition is one of the priorities of the French government", the note added, adding that France also wants to help Angola to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the fields of training, education and climate change.
"This project, a bilateral partnership to accompany a more sustainable development path, fulfills the commitments made by France and Angola at the end of the summit on May 18, 2021, in Paris, on the financing of African economies", it can be read in the note.
The Angolan Government's approach to supporting reforms is being implemented within the framework of "close and effective collaborations with other Angolan partners in this area, which are the European Union (within the scope of the "Team Europe Initiative"), the International Monetary Fund , the World Bank and the African Development Bank".
Signing of a project to support agricultural professional training
The Minister of Finance, together with the Minister of Education, Luísa Grilo, and Christian Yoka will also sign, on Thursday, a financing agreement for the project to support agricultural professional training in Angola.
"This project, called the Support Project for Agricultural Professional Training in Angola, is financed by the French Development Agency in the amount of 35 million euros, with a participation of the European Union of 5 million euros, on gender and nutrition issues, and aims to revitalize the network of agricultural technical institutes, in order to contribute to the sustainable development of agricultural production and value chains with the overall objective of reducing food insecurity and poverty in rural areas", reads another statement sent to VerAngola.
The project's objectives also include supporting the empowerment of women in rural areas, reducing gender inequalities and developing the employability of young people in the agricultural sector.
According to the statement, the project will have 2,500 beneficiaries and will cover 12 rehabilitated Agricultural Technical Institutes (ITA).
