The Ethiopian government and the World Bank have signed a financing agreement amounting to $300 million in support of the reconstruction and recovery of conflict-affected areas.

The $300 million financing accord, which was made in the form of a grant, was signed by Ethiopia’s Finance Minister, Ahmed Shide and the World Bank’s country representative to Ethiopia, Ousmane Dione, the Ethiopian Finance Ministry disclosed in a statement issued on Monday.

The resource will be used to finance activities designed to support communities in conflict-affected areas to re-access basic services of education, health and water supply, according to the Ministry.

The Ministry said the funding will include special support to survivors of gender-based violence within the areas affected by conflict. The fund in particular will finance activities of rebuilding and improving access to basic services and community infrastructure and support the strengthening of short and medium-term gender-based violence response services for the survivors in the targeted regions, Xinhua news agency reported.

The project will be implemented in selected districts of Ethiopia’s conflict-affected Amhara, Afar, Tigray, Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz regional states, the Ministry added.

The Ministry said in high conflict areas, the project will be implemented by a selected third-party institution on behalf of the Ethiopian government based on an agreement with the government./ Mangalorean