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afrol News, 3 April - The African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a loan of 11.15 billion Franc CFA (17 million euros) to finance a rural roads project in Senegal. The Senegalese project will be upgrading nearly 1,800 kms of rural roads in 90 rural communities as part of the national decentralisation programme. According to an ADF release, the Fund is to finance the Community Feeder Roads Project in Senegal. "This project is in keeping with the government's decentralised rural development policy and is complementary to the National Rural Infrastructure Programme drawn up in 1998 to revamp rural economy." The objective of the project is the upgrading of nearly 1,800 kms of rural roads, "based on demand and according to the service level decided upon by the users in order to improve ... access to community infrastructures (school, markets, health services, water, etc…)," ADF informed from its Abidjan headquarters today. The project will also open up production areas as projected by the Infrastructure Programme. "The rural communities will be assisted in their choices through awareness and training programmes on the investment and maintenance implications costs of those options," ADF reports. "The project will also implement measures to mitigate any subsequent negative impacts of the works on the environment." Furthermore, the project is set to strengthen the ongoing local development projects and assist the rural populations in realising the community feeder roads. ADF holds the project "will contribute to poverty reduction and improve the living standards of about 300,000 persons in rural areas by addressing their priority requirements for basic socio-economic infrastructures." The upgrading of the feeder roads and the infrastructures to be realised are thus expected to help increase labour productivity and make easier the evacuation and marketing of products. The project - whose total cost is estimated at francs CFA 18.32 billion (28 million euro) - will be co-financed by the ADF, the OPEC Fund and the beneficiaries. The ADF loan will be used to finance the entire foreign exchange costs and part of the local currency, the Fund states.
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