- Comoros has been admitted full membership to the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) during the Bank's annual board meeting, held in Jeddah. The impoverished island state already has been granted funding of several development projects and will receive aid to address the food prices crisis.
During an IDB board meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah, record budgets of the development bank were approved of. The Bank is to spend an additional US$ 533 million for new development projects all over the world. Also, the Bank said its 56 member countries are to invest up to US$ 1.2 trillion in infrastructure over the next ten years to meet the rapidly growing demand for telecom, transport, power, water and other infrastructure services.
The Bank, which is the Muslim world's premier multilateral financial institution, endorsed and approved the membership of two new member states, being Albania and Comoros. Both states are predominantly Muslim.
Some 26 least developed Muslim countries, most of them African, are to benefit from the landmark US$ 1.5 billion food initiative of the Islamic Development Bank that was announced. Under the five-year initiative, the Bank is to provide soft loans and grants to member countries to increase their agricultural production and make adequate stock of food grains.
The African beneficiaries of the food crisis initiative are: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Mozambique, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, and Uganda. "This food initiative will be implemented immediately," IDB President Ahmed Muhammad Ali told the press in Jeddah.
Comoros was also one of eight states receiving grants from the IDB's Waqf Fund, which promotes Islamic communities and religious training world-wide. The Fund was to spend US$ 200,000 on the provision of lab equipment and furniture for four secondary schools in Comoros.
afrol News - It is called "financial inclusion", and it is a key government policy in Rwanda. The goal is that, by 2020, 90 percent of the population is to have and actively use bank accounts. And in only four years, financial inclusion has doubled in Rwanda.
afrol News - The UN's humanitarian agencies now warn about a devastating famine in Sudan and especially in South Sudan, where the situation is said to be "imploding". Relief officials are appealing to donors to urgently fund life-saving activities in the two countries.
afrol News - Fear is spreading all over West Africa after the health ministry in Guinea confirmed the first Ebola outbreak in this part of Africa. According to official numbers, at least 86 are infected and 59 are dead as a result of this very contagious disease.
afrol News - It is already a crime being homosexual in Ethiopia, but parliament is now making sure the anti-gay laws will be applied in practical life. No pardoning of gays will be allowed in future, but activist fear this only is a signal of further repression being prepared.
afrol News / Africa Renewal - Ethiopia's ambitious plan to build a US$ 4.2 billion dam in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, 40 km from its border with Sudan, is expected to provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for its population plus some excess it can sell to neighbouring countries.
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