The African Development Bank (AfDB) through its African Natural Resources Management and Investment Center (ANRC) launched a two-year project last Thursday on “the governance of natural resource outflows, for increased economic resilience in Africa's fragile and transition countries” (GONAT).

The GONAT project will be implemented in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Sierra-Leone, and Zimbabwe. It aims to strengthen national capacities to manage the outflow of natural resources, by addressing the issues of loans secured by these resources and the illicit trade in natural resources.

The Gonat project should therefore improve domestic resource mobilization, debt sustainability, and overall economic resilience in the various beneficiary countries through capacity building for actors in the natural resources sector. It should also improve the fight against illicit trade in resources, promote better resource governance and better management of natural resource-based loans in order to accelerate investment in the sector.