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AFD signed a financing agreement with the Bank of Mozambique

for the Development project for National Reserve of Gilé and its surrounding area

13 April 2009

On the 13^rd of April, 2009, the central Bank of Mozambique and the French Development Agency (AFD) in Maputo signed a € 1M financing agreement for the Development project of the Gilé National Reserve and its surrounding area.

The financing agreement has been signed by the Governor of the central Bank of Mozambique, Ernesto Gouveia Gove, in representation of the Government of Mozambique and the AFD Director in Maputo, Bruno Leclerc, in representation of the “Fonds Français pour l'Environnement Mondial” (French GEF).

This € 1 million grant aims at developing the National Reserve of Gilé and its surrounding area. Being the unique protected area of Zambezia province that reserve is one of the last wild areas in the region. It has an exceptional biodiversity which is more and more threatened by the increasing pressure on its natural resources.

The objectives of the 4-year-project are to preserve and rehabilitate the biodiversity of the national reserve, and to guarantee a sustainable use of the natural resources by the populations who live around it. The project also aims at reintroducing threatened species such as black rhinoceros and at working for and with the communities living around the reserve (“buffer zone”).

The Ministry of Tourism (MITUR) has signed in June 2007 a memorandum of understanding that delegates the management of the reserve to the IGF Foundation, which will be also in charge of the implementation of the activities financed by the FFEM in the new project. The project is part of a larger development program for the reserve, to which contribute many actors such as the Italian NGO COSV.

This support comes within the scope of France’s strategy in Mozambique for the period 2006-2010, which defines, for grants, two main sectors of interventions, health and Environment.