The African Development Fund (ADF) has approved a loan of 23.74mn Units of Account (UA)* and a UA2.79mn Technical Assistance Fund (TAF) grant, totalling an amount equivalent to US$35.03mn to finance the national livestock productivity improvement project in Uganda.

The project aims to increase household incomes of livestock farmers through improved livestock productivity and marketing. It will help develop animal health, water supply and forage resources as well as livestock market infrastructure and information systems.

The project will contribute to poverty alleviation and strengthen food security in Uganda through improved livestock productivity and marketing in order to increase the income of the livestock farmers. More than 130,000 livestock farmers will benefit from the project that will provide them with the appropriate environment and infrastructure for the development of livestock and the improvement of their incomes.

The ADF loan will be used to finance 96% of the foreign exchange costs and 41.2% of the local currency expenses of the project whose total amount is estimated at UA18.03mn, the equivalent of US$23.82mn. The TAF grant will finance 3.9% of the foreign costs and 13.5% of the local currency costs of the project.

The bank group operations in Uganda started in 1968. To date, the group has committed more than US$1bn on 85 operations. Of this amount, about US$569.22mn have been disbursed.

1 UA = 1.32163 $ EU as at November 1st 2002