EU triples development grant to €17m
14.12.2009
The European Union (EU) on Friday signed for a 9 million euro grant bringing development grants this year to 17 million euro from an initial 5.9 million.
The head of the EU delegation for Mauritius, Seychelles and the Comoros, ambassador Alessandro Mariani signed on behalf of the EU and Vivianne Fock-Tave who is our ambassador to the EU signed on behalf of Seychelles government.
The ceremony was attended by British High Commissioner Matthew Forbes who represents the EU locally, the principal secretary for finance Ahmed Afif and the PS for foreign affairs Barry Faure.
“With the signing of this second addendum to the country strategy paper which provides for 9 million euros, the EU has practically increased its development cooperation with Seychelles by 200% over the last two months. Overall, total financial assistance to Seychelles has almost tripled,” Mr Mariani said.
“In early October we signed for the first addendum to the strategy which introduced an increase of 2.5 million euro as well as budget support as a new way of financial assistance instead of direct support to the focal centre,” he said.
“Indeed EU’s decision to move to budget support clearly shows European Commission’s commitment to help the government of Seychelles in the implementation of its strategy to maintain macroeconomic stability, improve management of public finance over the medium term and promote economic recovery of Seychelles while preserving a strong focus on social sectors and employment creation,” he said.
Ambassador Mariani said the EU has been encouraged by the positive assessment of the International Monetary Fund following the third review of the Standby Arrangement in which the IMF qualified the implementation of our economic reforms as exemplary, and commended the strong ownership and broad support for the reforms.
“We also support the strengthening of donor coordination under the leadership of the government of Seychelles,” he said.
Mr Mariani said we qualified for assistance through budget support because of our well-defined national policy and strategy, an oriented macroeconomic policy and credible programmes to improve public financial management.
Both Ms Fock-Tave and Mr Afif thanked the EU for its support, saying the reforms have been very challenging but added the EU move was “very encouraging”.