WORKSHOP ON PERFORMANCE BASED ALLOCATION FRAMEWORK OPENED

The Honourable Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Kwadwo Baah Wiredu opened the regional workshop on performance based allocation which is being organized by the African Development bank Group at Elmina from 17th - 21st March, 2008.

About 40 participants from The Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Zambia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana, the host nation, are attending the Workshop. The workshop aims at sensitizing the participants on the latest version of the Performance–Based Allocation (PBA) system.

Welcoming participants, the Honourable Minister said the workshop will serve as an effective tool to strengthen the African Development Bank’s effectiveness, through more focused policy dialogue and improved country programming.

He noted that, in the view of enhancing the prospect of timely achievement by the Regional Member Countries (RMCs) of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the ADB and other development partners are becoming increasingly selective, thereby scaling up their support for infrastructure, water and sanitation, agriculture and food security as well as promoting good governance in meeting critical needs in health and education.

The Government of Ghana on its part, he said, has focused on growing the economy by promoting infrastructural development notably roads, energy and more recently, the oil industry. The budget therefore has been designed to bring Ghana closer to its vision of a Middle Income Economy.

Finally, he stated that the low-income countries will discuss all the guiding principles that will drive the distribution of African Development Fund -XI (ADF XI) resources, including the impact of the Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF) and implications of the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

The ADB Resident Representative in Ghana, Mr. Alieu Jeng said organizing the workshop is a testimony of the bank’s commitment to implementing the ADF Deputies’ recommendations that African countries must be adequately informed about the PBA process and methodology, in support of greater transparency and disclosure on country performance ratings. The workshop is the first of its kind on the new guidelines for the performance–based allocation (PBA) system to be organized by the African Development Bank.

The African Development Bank (ADB) Group allocates the bulk of its concessional resources to its low-income African Development Fund countries using the PBA system, which endeavor’s to balance countries’ development performances and needs.

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