KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait has donated 500 million dollars for the development of east Sudan, the foreign minister of the Gulf state said Wednesday at the start of an international conference for donors and investors.
"I am pleased to announce the donation of the State of Kuwait of 500 million dollars for East Sudan development," Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah announced at the opening ceremony.
Sheikh Mohammad said 450 million dollars would be in the form of development projects to be carried out by the state-run Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (KFAED) and the remaining 50 million dollars as a grant for social projects.
Musa Mohammed Ahmad, assistant to Sudanese president, announced pledges of 1.572 billion dollars by Khartoum for education, health, irrigation, electricity and water projects for east Sudan.
More pledges are expected to be announced before the end of the forum on Thursday.
More than 600 representatives of 39 countries, 28 international organizations and 73 non-governmental organizations are attending the two-day forum hosted by Kuwait.
Leading delegates include Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa.
The United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), the World Bank and the Islamic Development Fund are among leading organizations taking part in the conference, which will discuss a total of 177 projects worth 4.2 billion dollars.
KFAED director general Abdel Wahab Al-Badr said projects worth two billion dollars are investments expected to be taken up by private investors "while we hope to find the necessary government funding for the remaining 2.2 billion dollars worth of development projects."
Mustafa Osman Ismail, an adviser to Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, said in Kuwait on Tuesday the projects are expected to be partially or fully completed over the next five years.
Main projects to be offered for investors and donors include a major dam at a cost of 600 million dollars, three cement factories for 450 million dollars, and roads and power projects at a cost of 430 million dollars.
East Sudan, an area the size of Italy and divided into the three states of Kassala, Al-Qadarif and Red Sea, is blessed with huge gold, oil and gas resources as well as vast uncultivated arable land.
And yet there is rampant poverty among the region’s five million inhabitants, most of whom live on less than two dollars a day, and child mortality and malnutrition rates run high.
"The region is in dire need of investment in infrastructure, human capital, and preservation of peace through new development," Claudio Caldarone, the UNDP country director for Sudan told AFP.
"It is a region with high potential for growth and development … It has the only access in Sudan to the sea, it has the second best preserved coral reef in the world.
"There are also innumerable natural resources … (including) oil, gas, gold, marble and there is also… uncultivated arable land," Caldarone said.
Caldarone agreed the region needs around four billion dollars for development.
The east of Sudan was the scene of a decade-long rebellion by ethnic minority groups against the central government in Khartoum that ended with a 2006 peace deal.
According to UNDP figures, 58 percent of the population in the Red Sea state and 50 percent of those in Al-Qadarif live below the national poverty line, surviving on 50 dollars per person a month.
