The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund, the concessional lending arm of the African Development Bank Group, has approved a $12 million grant to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to implement the Inclusion and Development Support Project for financial sector in the country.
The financing will support financial sector reforms in the country and improve the financial inclusion of rural and vulnerable populations, especially women and youth, as well as micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
Specifically, the project will help mobilize long-term resources by supporting the creation of a national development bank and a stock exchange, as well as the expansion of the government securities market. It will also foster financial inclusion by supporting the interoperability of payment services and improving the technical and operational capacity of microfinance institutions and other e-money issuers.
The creation of a payment incidences center and the strengthening of the capacity of the regulators and supervisors of the payment systems will reinforce the financial stability of the country. Project activities will be carried out with a view to increasing the resilience of the financial sector and reducing poverty in the DRC.
Nicolas Kazadi Kadima-Nzuji, DRC Finance Minister, said the government was “pleased with the approval of this important project by the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank. This project targets the key objectives of our program of action, namely the creation of a national development bank, the improvement of financial inclusion and the strengthening of the government securities market in the DRC”.
“We are delighted to support the development of financial markets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” said Ahmed Attout, Head of the Capital Markets Development Division of the African Development Bank Group. “This project has a central role in the development of the government securities market. It will provide more liquidity and overhaul some key regulatory frameworks to mobilize resources for the long term. The project will also help diversify sources of financing for Congolese small and medium-sized enterprises. larger companies and increase financial inclusion in the DRC,” he added.
