To boost economic opportunities and improve access to social services for more than 900,000 people in Tanzania, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had made available a $50m loan to the East African country.
OPEC Fund for International Development disclosed yesterday that the loan would be used to finance the Fourth Tanzania Poverty Reduction Project.
OPEC Fund Director-General, Dr. Abdulhamid Alkhalifa, said, “The OPEC Fund has been committed to helping Tanzania reduce poverty and improve socio-economic conditions for many years.
“The present loan will help communities to help build capacity, strengthen food security and household incomes, as well as improve access to social amenities. We have a strong partnership with Tanzania and look forward to seeing more progress on key development indicators in the near future.”
The OPEC Fund/Tanzania partnership has spanned 45 years during which the OPEC has committed more than $370m for 38 public sector operations (including the present project) across a wide range of sectors.
Although Tanzania has made progress in reducing poverty over the past decade, around 26 million people – close to half the total population – live on less than $1.90 per day. The Tanzanian government has launched a number of programmes to tackle this challenge, including social safety nets and three previous phases (also co-financed by the OPEC Fund) of the new project.
