Staff Reporter

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has offered to closely work with Zimbabwe to assist the country in its economic recovery endeavors following decades of illegal sanctions and hostile narratives by the Western countries.

Speaking after paying a courtesy call on Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Frederick Shava, AfDB Country Manager to Zimbabwe, Mrs Moono Mupotola said the Bank’s Board of Directors had approved a three year plan for Zimbabwe focusing on key sectors which include mining and agriculture.

“The Board of Directors of AfDB has approved a three year plan strategy for Zimbabwe. And looking at the key area, the first area is support to the private sector, trying to see how we can help Zimbabwe to develop a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive, particularly looking at development of value chains in the agricultural sector and mining sector. Our focus will also be to ensure that we focus on the SMEs development in the country, particularly support to Government in terms of capacity building and technical assistance,” said Mrs Mupotola.

The AfDB which has in the past worked with the country’s parliament, Zimra and Auditor General’s office, has also pledged to assist Zimbabwe to clear its arrears with financial institutions.

“The other area we will focus on will be the issue of arrears clearance, particularly clearing the debt that Zimbabwe has with AfDB. As you know, we would like to ensure that all our member countries in the AfDB group can actually borrow from us. So part of my brief  during this period is  to ensure we work on arrears clearance not only with AfDB but Zimbabwe’s arrears clearance with other multilateral institutions,” added Mupotola.

Mrs Mupotola further said that AfDB will work closely with Government to ensure the implementation of the country’s economic reforms.

“We hope to work very closely with Government, providing the support to Government to meet some of the conditions, particularly on the economic front but also to see how we can help put up some of these instrument frameworks and implementation of some of the economic reforms,” said Mupotola.

The AfDB and Zimbabwe has been working closely over the years and last year the Bank approved US$13.7 million grant to finance the Covid 19 response in the country.