European Union and European Investment Bank have funded water and sanitation project to benefit a million Malawians.

The Malawi peri-urban water and sanitation project, funded by the European Investment Bank the European Union, and the Malawi government, was inaugurated on 26th August 2010 in Blantyre, Malawi.

Minister of Irrigation and Water Development, Hon Richie Biswick Muheya M.P., European Union Ambassador to Malawi, Alexander Baum, and Jane Shirran, representative of the EIB's southern Africa regional office in Pretoria, attended to the inauguration.

The project will include upgrading key water and sanitation infrastructure and institutional capacity-development. Financial support will be given to local NGOs advising on project implementation. The overall programme will also include a HIV/AIDS initiative. The total project cost is €32 million and will be financed through an EU Water Facility Grant of €14.9 million, a subsidised €15.7 million loan from the European Investment Bank, technical assistance and support from the Malawi government.

Background

This project falls within the framework of the ACP-EU Water Facility and the 9th European Development Fund. The facility has a budget of €500 million and was set up in 2004 with the principal objective of providing water and basic sanitation to the poor and improving water management governance in the 78 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States. Up to now, these funds have benefited 14.5 million people. The EIB, the long-term lending institution of the EU, has been active in Africa for over 40 years. In 2009, the bank provided over €1.1 billion of funding to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania.