News on Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone

Reuters reports that some of the world's richest nations and international lenders plan to give Guinea-Bissau emergency funds so the poor west African country can pay military salaries and ensure stability before presidential elections later this year, officials said on Friday.

Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony still struggling to recover from civil war in the 1990s, wants help to close this year's 26 million-euro budget deficit, Finance Minister Joao Aladje Fadiah told reporters after a meeting with development partners on Friday. It has not yet been determined when and how much emergency money will go to Guinea-Bissau, but the goal is for an eventual total of 10.3 million euros to be used directly to ease the budget deficit, Monteiro said at a news conference.

The Financial Times writes that the dice will roll for Sierra Leone at a meeting due to be held in Paris, probably in May, where donors will make their pledges of aid for the next three years. World Bank and United Nations experts estimate the country's financing needs over that period at
between $800 million and $ one billion. The fresh round of aid commitments follows the drawing-up of a poverty reduction strategy paper, the framework for debt relief and concessional support from the World Bank and IMF.

Sierra Leone has already reached debt relief agreements with most of its non-commercial creditors. With foreign assistance providing half of Sierra Leone's national budget, the country relies heavily on external funds flowing into public sector projects. Aside from telecommunications
and mining ventures, there is so far little momentum behind private sector investment.