By Andrei Skvarsky.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved loans for the governments of Kenya and Mauritius, with each country to receive 188m euros ($205m), to combat Covid-19 and mitigate the economic and social impacts of the pandemic.
The loan for Kenya, approved by the AfDB’s board of directors on May 22, is, among other things, expected to cushion the effects of the pandemic on the poorer part of the population, the AfDB, which is headquartered in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, said in a statement.
Kenya has not been hit by coronavirus nearly as badly as the United States or Italy. The African nation of 53.65m has registered a little fewer than 1,200 cases to date with 50 deaths and 380 recoveries.
However, Covid-19 has been a heavy burden on the country’s healthcare system and economy, according to the AfDB statement.
It has disrupted supply chains, caused job losses in various industries, among them tourism, hospitality, horticulture and air transport, and deprived many of the self-employed of their livelihoods.
Projected 2020 gross domestic product growth of 6 per cent has been revised down to between 0.6 and 1.4 per cent.
“The next step will focus on helping build resilience for post-Covid-19,” the statement quoted the bank’s acting director general for East Africa, Nnenna Nwabufo, as saying.
Mauritius has done worse than Kenya in relative terms with the 1.27m nation having 332 registered cases today. However, this number has not risen since the end of April, the AfDB said in another statement.
The AfDB loan for Mauritius aims to bolster uts government’s Covid-19 Rapid Response Facility (CRF), a programme to support vulnerable population groups and the informal sector, prevent job losses, and make micro, small and medium-sized enterprises more resilient.
Kenya was one of the countries in the eastern part of Africa that received grants from the AfDB in April to fight swarms of locusts that were threatening their food security. The bank said Kenya was facing its worst locust invasion in 70 years.
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