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afrol News, 8 May - Dept relief for Ghana is coming from all around after the new government of President John Agyekum Kufuor started to obey strictly to structural reforms. Today, the African Development Bank (ADB) has approved debt relief amounting to US$ 131. The ADB today stated it has approved this debt relief to Ghana, which reached its decision point in February 2002 under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. "With this debt relief, Ghana will be released from up to 80 percent of its annual debt service obligations to the Bank Group during the interim period and will thus have more resources for poverty reduction," an ADB statement says. - The main objective of the ADB Group's assistance strategy in Ghana is poverty reduction, enhancement of good governance and capacity building necessary in designing the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), the statement reads. In November 2001, the Bank Group had approved an ADF loan of approximately US$ 3.80 million for the institutional project towards good governance and poverty reduction. This project was to involve workshops to support capacity building in designing, implementing and monitoring Ghana's PRSP. These workshops are expected to assist in developing participatory monitoring systems that enable the public and key stakeholders within the government to monitor poverty actions and outcomes as part of the PRSP process. Ghana also has to follow international guidelines of structural reform and liberalisation - macroeconomic reforms which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) perceives as contributing to the fight against poverty. Structural reform includes the somewhat painful privatisation of public water services, against which civil society is forcefully protesting. - The ADB's participation in the enhanced HIPC framework is financed from its own internal resources and contributions from bilateral donors and the European Union, the Bank informs. The provision of debt relief to Ghana brings to 21 the number of countries that have benefited from the ADB debt relief under the enhanced HIPC framework. As at end February 2002, the ADB has provided, under the enhanced HIPC framework, a total debt relief of US$ 1,909.71 million to 20 countries including Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Chad,
Cameroon, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia. Sources: Based on ADB and afrol archives
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