The African Development Bank (AfDB) approved loans worth about $8.5 billion in 2011 representing about 36 per cent increase over the figures in 2010.

The bank’s overall loans and grants approvals in 2010 stood at about $6.2 billion.

Statistics from the continental bank made available to newsmen at the ongoing AfDB yearly general meeting (AGM), in Arusha, Tanzania, showed that infrastructure accounted for over 38 per cent of loans and grants.

Multi-sector loans and grants followed with about 21 per cent, while development financing got over 19 per cent of the loans and grants outlay.

The multi-sector approvals cover funds for public sector management, good governance and anti-corruption programmes, industrial import facilitation and export promotion.

The finance operation includes finances to development banking, commercial banking, non-bank financial intermediation, re-insurance and microfinance funds.

According to AfDB, the profile of funds toward infrastructure stemmed from the fact that it remains one of the four main pillars of the continental bank’s strategy for assisting the development of Africa.

The other three are investing in the private sector, education and the promotion of good governance.

AfDB’s Treasurer, Pierre Van Peteghem, said that the bank’s investment in infrastructure have been rewarding and worthwhile.

According to him, the bank’s $23 million rural electrification project in Guinea would boost electricity supply from three per cent to 20 per cent by 2015.

Peteghem also said that the construction of $82 million Kazungula bridge linking Zambia and Botswana would slash the man hour time spent on the road from 30 hours to six hours when completed in 2018.

Between 2009 and 2011, he said, 12.5 million people benefited from new or improved access to water and sanitation programme of the bank across Africa.

Similarly, about 11 million people enjoyed better access to transportation through AfDB investments during the period under review.

The Treasurer said that in the three years, the bank invested in the construction, maintenance or rehabilitation of 25,000 km of roads.

He said seven million Africans, in the period under review, accessed electricity through AfDB assisted installation and rehabilitation of 15,000 km of electricity power transmission lines.

Peteghem said the private sector accounted for 25 projects or 15 per cent of the AfDB approvals in 2011.

The projects over the next 20 to 30 years, according him, are expected to raise $3.5 billion in taxes for various governments in Africa.

He projected the creation of 86,600 jobs and credit or business opportunities for 1,160 women-led businesses in the continent.

The treasurer said that $79 million was approved by the bank for higher education, technology and vocational training in 2011.

Specifically, the bank committed $21 million in Bamako Digital Complex project, Mali, $23 million in the Alternative Learning Project in Tanzania and financed the Technical and Vocational Education and Training project in Eritrea with $18 million.

Peteghem said that AfDB in the last three years approved 19 operations in the education sector worth $461 million.

He said that the dividends of the interventions were new 6,000 classrooms, recruitment of 107,000 teachers, supply of 4.25 million textbooks while three million scholars and students benefited from the banks programmes.