Central African Republic
Round Table

Background

The Development Partner Round Table for the Central African Republic (CAR), which is being organised by the Government of CAR in Brussels on 26 October 2007, comes at a favourable moment in relations between CAR and its partners. Since the end of 2006, discussions between CAR and the international financial community have resulted in:

• a joint World Bank/AfDB reengagement strategy, leading to the clearance of CAR’s debt arrears with these two institutions,
• an agreement between CAR and the IMF on a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) and
• a restructuring of its external public debt with the Paris Club in April 2007.

Discussions with the Bretton Woods institutions are underway to reach the HIPC initiative decision point by the end of September 2007.

During this same period, the Government has reached out to donors in order to strengthen ties between CAR and the international community. In this spirit, the Government organised a development partner consultation in Brussels on 26 June 2007, the first of its kind since the establishment of the new regime resulting from free and fair elections in 2005. This meeting in June 2007 allowed CAR’s Government to engage in an honest and in-depth dialogue with the international donor community on all matters relating to the country’s development.

During the June meeting, CAR’s development partners shared the Government’s concern regarding the insufficiency in scope and speed of resource mobilisation to finance the reconstruction of the country – despite wide recognition that it is a fragile state. They consequently recommended that the dialogue be continued with a Round Table meeting, with the purpose of allowing donors to examine CAR’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), the programmes proposed to implement that strategy, and the financing plan of the PRSP.

In view of ensuring that the increased aid to CAR is efficiently used, the participants at the June meeting also underlined the importance of improved aid coordination as a tool for the Government to better master its development policies and strategies. With this in mind, they requested that the PRSP be the over-arching reference framework to coordinate all development activities of partners in the country. This issue, of improving the coordination and efficiency of aid in the spirit of the Paris Declaration and recent donor policy, will also be thoroughly discussed during the October 2007 Round Table.