The African Development Bank ( AfDB ) has approved a grant amounting to US$44.9 million to finance the asphalting of the 49.5-kilometre Kyabé-Mayo section of the Kyabé-Singako Road in Chad, including the construction of a 55-metre bridge.

The agreement was signed in the capital N’Djamena on February 19 by Tahir Hamid Nguilin, Chad’s minister of state for finance, budget, economy, planning and international cooperation, and Claude N’Kodia, AfDB’s acting representative in the country. Also present was a delegation from the International Monetary Fund, led by its head of mission for Chad, Julien Reynaud. The funding will support one of the Chadian government’s key development objectives through strategic infrastructure improvement.

“The [Moyen-Chari] region, including Kyabé, Singako and Am Timan, has strong economic potential. It is Chad’s main agricultural basin and livestock area, rich in fish resources. Fish are supplied from Moyen-Chari to a large part of the country's south and even to foreign markets,” says Nguilin, who is also the bank’s governor for Chad.

The road project will open up the southern and eastern regions of Chad, reduce vulnerability, and strengthen the resilience of local populations, especially women and young people. It will improve the transportation of goods and people between Kyabé and Singako by providing an all-weather road, facilitating the flow of agricultural and animal products from the rich areas of Moyen-Chari and Salamat to the consumer centres of Sarh, Moundou, N’Djamena and Abéché. It will also enhance accessibility to Moyen-Chari from neighboring Sudan.

The agreement paves the way for support from the Islamic Development Bank to finance the second section of the 205-kilometre Mayo-Singako-Am Timan at an estimated cost of $275.5 million.

The Kyabé-Mayo section of the Kyabé-Singako road is one of the missing links in the N’Djamena-Moundou-Sarh-Kyabé-Am Timan-Abéché corridor, and forms part of the priority structuring network that the Chadian government aims to develop to ensure nationwide coverage and permanent accessibility.

The African Development Bank Group says it remains a strategic financial partner for Chad, with its strategy paper focusing on two priority pillars – developing infrastructure to achieve strong and diversified economic growth and promoting good governance to increase the effectiveness of public action and the attractiveness of the economic environment.