UK Pledges £105m for Land Mgmt, Industrialisation

Aug 1 , 2020

The government of the UK and Ethiopia have signed a grant agreement amounting to 105 million pounds to support land certification, improved rural land administration and industrialisation. Ahmed Shide, minister of Finance, and James Duddridge (MP), Minister for Africa of the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Department of International Development, signed the grant agreement on July 28, 2020. The grant will be used for the Land Investment for Transformation and the Accelerated Ethiopia Economics Transformation programmes. The programmes will be implemented in Oromia, Amhara, Tigray and Southern Nations, Nationalities & People's regional states. The UK has pledged 60 million pounds for phase two of the Land Investment for Transformation programme, which is aimed at transforming the land certification and market system in the regional states. It incorporates second-level land certification for seven million parcels of land and computerisation of 103 weredas' land administration systems where the second-level land certification occur. The second part of the grant, with 45 million euros, will go toward the Accelerated Ethiopia Economics Transformation programme, designed to support industrialisation. It is expected to create 40,000 new jobs and generate 25 million pounds of private investment in four fully operational industrial parks. The initiative is also expected to strengthen federal and regional institutions and the regulatory and policy environment within which businesses operate.