Africa Growing Together Fund provides EUR 46.12 million loan for Road Infrastructure Modernization Project (Linked to Umbrella Project ID#36104)

On May 22, 2014, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the People's Bank of China (PBOC) signed an agreement for the Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF) (see Umbrella Project ID#36104). The purpose of this $2 billion loan facility was to finance large development projects in Africa between 2014 and 2024. The AGTF is sponsored by the PBOC and the administered by AfDB. Then, on November 19, 2015, AGTF signed an EUR 46,120,000 loan agreement (ID#5050130000151) with the Government of Tunisia for the Road Infrastructure Modernization Project. On the same day, the African Development Fund (ADF) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) issued an EUR 144 million loan (ID#5500155009352) for the same project. The AFDB also provided an EUR 1.2 million grant (ID#5500155009352) for the project through its Middle Income Countries Technical Assistance Fund (MIC-TAF). Additionally, on November 15, 2016, the European Investment Bank (EIB) approved an EUR 123 million loan for the project. The borrowing terms of the AGTF are as follows: a 20-year maturity, a 5-year grace period, and an interest rate of 6-month EURIBOR plus a 0.6% margin. The first AGTF loan disbursement took place on March 9, 2016. As of the 2021, the AGTF loan had achieved a 75.13% disbursement rate. The purpose of the Road Infrastructure Modernization Project (PMIR) is to complete actions embarked upon in the late 1990s to upgrade Tunisia’s classified road network. PMIR seeks to rehabilitate 719 kilometers of classified roads, most of which are in the country’s inland (West, Centre-West and North-West) governorates that, unlike the coastal regions, are less equipped with economic infrastructure. One component of the project is the "Permanent Link between Motorway A4 and the town of Bizerte in Tunisia,” which is a 9.5 km-long urban expressway (reference speed of 80 km/h) permanently linking motorway A4 to the town of Bizerte, including the canal crossing through a viaduct. The new infrastructure is a peri-urban expressway with interchanges of varying heights. Pedestrian traffic is forbidden on the main road, including on the viaduct. The project is sub-divided into three lots, namely: Lot 1: South Road: "South road section. Interchange A4/ RN8 – viaduct". PK0+000 to PK4+659. This road layout mainly follows a corridor on the outskirts of urban centres, bypasses Zarzouna and crosses Menzel Abderrahmen. The layout comprises three intersection points with interchanges of completely different heights. Lot 2: Viaduct: "Viaduct with a mixed meshwork and combined double action deck". PK4+659 to PK6+729. Lot 2 is an imposing 2,070 m-long viaduct that crosses the canal with three spans, the main 293 m-long span supported by two v-shaped single piers directing the navigation canal. Lot 3: North Road: "North road section. Viaduct – RL348. PK6+729 to PK9+446" is a 2.7 km-long road extension of this link beyond the viaduct to the north of the canal, like a northern bypass of the town, to improve access to the town of Bizerte. The road layout extends beyond RN11 to RL438 with a roundabout. PMIR also seeks to upgrade some civil engineering structures on the classified network to make them more resilient to the effects of climate change and give them features that are consistent with the service level and the expected traffic on the network. Considering its scope and the major environmental and social impacts identified, the project was classified under Environmental Category 1, in accordance with the environmental and social assessment procedures of the African Development Bank (AfDB). An environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) was conducted in 2015 and 2016 respectively for the permanent link and its extension and finalized in 2017. A full resettlement plan (FRP) was also prepared and finalized in 2017. The ESIA reports were approved by Tunisia’s National Environmental Protection Agency (ANPE) and compliance opinions were issued on December 31, 2016 and May 10, 2017 for the permanent link and its extension, respectively. Project implementation commenced in 2016 and was still underway as of July 2022. The project’s originally expected completion date was October 31, 2022.

Additional details

1. The AfDB project identification number is P-TN-DB0-013. 2. The all-in interest rate was calculated by adding an 0.6% margin to the average 6-month EURIBOR rate in November 2015 (0.053%). 3. The margin of 0.6% is calculated by adding the Funding Cost Margin (unknown) to the Contractual Margin (0.6%). 4. The French project title is Projet De Modernisation De L’infrastructure Routière.

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