Marrakesh, Morrocco, 16 November 2016 – The Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) signed a loan agreement with the Government of Burkina Faso and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Economic Community of West African States Commission (ECOWAS).

The agreements were signed during COP22, held November 7-18 2016 in Marrakech.

The financing agreement was signed by H.E. Dr. Bandar Al-Hajjar, President of the Islamic Development Bank Group, and Her Excellency Hadizatou Rosine Coulibaly, Minister of Economy, Finance and Development of Burkina Faso. The US$ 37 million dollar loan will go towards expanding and strengthening of the country’s electricity grid.

The project will improve the living conditions of about 415,000 people in the cities of Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso and Koudougou, as well as in the localities of the Central Plateau, the Northern Center and the Sahel. It will provide access to reliable electricity by extending and strengthening transport and distribution networks. It will increase the national electricity access rate by 2 per cent by connecting 70,000 households in Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso and Koudougou by 2023. It will also
boost the network’s transit capacity from 20 MW in 2016 to 100 MW by 2020 in order to meet the growing demand in the Central Plateau, the Sahel and the Northern Center.

The MoU, signed by Dr. Hajjar and Mr. Marcel Alain de Souza, President of ECOWAS, will institutionalize cooperation between the signatory parties. IsDB and ECOWAS will work together to facilitate the flow of business, notably in trade, investment, information, infrastructure connectivity and private sector development.

Both signatories stressed the need to develop practical ways to implement the MoU, whose goal is to promote the regional economic integration of member states. The agreement will also strengthen the capacity of human capital and reduce customs barriers between signatory ECOWAS member countries.

The MoU is open to other fields of cooperation not yet covered in the agreement.