The Governing Board of the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), meeting in its 134th Session, has approved US$65 million in new financing. The funds will support five projects in various countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The bulk of the lending will be allocated to agriculture and rural development, while the remaining will help fund road projects.
The five public sector loans comprise:
| Country | Project | Amount (US$mil.) |
| Armenia | Rural Asset Creation: To help finance the construction or rehabilitation of public utilities as part of a wider-scale project aimed at improving incomes and raising living standards among poor, small-scale farmers in Armenia. | 20.0 |
| Burundi | Bujumbura - Nyamitanga Road: To help promote socio-economic development in northwest Burundi through the construction of a road that will facilitate the movement of agricultural goods and people residing in some of the poorest provinces in the region. | 8.0 |
| El Salvador | Rural Territorial Competitiveness - "Rural Dawn": To help reduce rural poverty in eastern El-Salvador through the implementation of schemes aimed at improving incomes, boosting food security and implementing market diversification schemes, benefiting over 225,000 people. | 15.0 |
| Lao PDR | Second Northern Greater Mekong Subregion Transport Network Improvement: To rehabilitate and upgrade around 143 km of roads in the Houaphanh Province in the northeast, which will improve access to social services and marketplaces for some 60,000 people residing in the project area. | 12.0 |
| Mali | Markala Sugar: To expand Mali's sugar production capacity to enable the export of excess sugar to neighboring countries and raise incomes of independent sugarcane farmers, benefiting some 156,000 individuals. | 10.0 |
| Total | 65.0 |
In addition, four grants totaling US$3.75 million were approved at the meeting. A US$1.5 million grant will further a project of the International Partnership for Microbicides, which is developing microbial gels for preventing HIV transmission. Activities will be carried out in Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The third phase of a program to aid 20 Palestinian civil society organizations that are providing assistance in the areas of agriculture, community development, education and health will receive support with a US$1.5 million grant. Another grant of US$450,000 will be extended to the International Atomic Energy Agency towards a cancer control program in Vietnam, while US$300,000 will support a UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) school hygiene and sanitation initiative in Tanzania.
Since its inception, OFID has provided over US$13 billion in much-needed concessional development financing to 129 developing countries around the world, with priority given to the poorest amongst them.