INTERNATIONAL financial organizations need to provide long-term loans without interest so that African countries can fully implement development projects, the government has declared.

Dr Natu El-Maamry Mwamba, the Treasury permanent secretary, issued this appeal here over the weekend at a meeting for finance ministers, and central bank governors as executive directors of the Africa Group 1 constituency. 

The meeting organised by the World Bank involved 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, listed as Botswana, Burundi, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

The meeting was part of spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, with observers noting that IMF has been taking a more marginal role in such meetings over the past decade.

The World Bank has vastly larger funds than the IMF which loans governments when they are in balance of payments distress, despite that its latest major operation was in 2021, when it provided 1.2trn/- to Tanzania for post Covid-19 recovery efforts, directed at health and education sectors principally, as conditional budget support.

The Treasury executive said that short-term loans are hurting African countries, so we ask for long-term loans, 50 to 70 years and without interest. "We ask the World Bank when reviewing their expectations to prioritize Africa and each country and provide additional financial resources," she urged.

The Bretton Woods institution need to disburse more development financing for instance in the new cycle of the IDA 21 replenishment fund “to be sent directly to the beneficiaries in order to get positive results quickly,” she stated

She urged the World Bank to pay greater attention to development priorities of African countries, pointing at the need for funds and skills so that they can implement various development projects.

While the World Bank has been helping African countries, attention needs to be directed to energy in development projects to raise Africa’s economies more rapidly, she further noted.

On a different note, she used the forum to remind the gathering of Tanzania’s request at the 26th general meeting of the Africa Group 1 constituency held in the Moroccan city of Marrakech last year, to make Kiswahili usable in the African constituency meetings.

The growth of the language and its being used on various regional and international meetings makes this demand feasible, she said/.

"Kiswahili has become one of the languages ​​used in meetings of the East African Community (EAC), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and it is on the way to being adopted for use in international meetings,” she added.