KUWAIT CITY: Donors and investors have pledged $3.55 billion for the development of resource-rich but neglected east Sudan, officials said Thursday at the end of a two-day conference in Kuwait City. “Total pledges made by participants in the east Sudan donors and investors forum came at $3.55 billion,” said Mustafa Osman Ismail, an advisor to the Sudanese president and head of the organizing committee. He later told a press conference that about $1.6 billion pledged by the Khartoum government on the first day of the forum was part of the total. “Sudan government promised to invest the pledges in development and infrastructure projects,” Ismail said. Hosts Kuwait topped donors with $500 million while Iran pledged $200 million and the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank pledged $250 million. The Kuwait-based Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development pledged $210 million while the Arab Investment Guarantee Organization undertook to provide support for $300 million in investments. Britain topped the Western donors with $70 million dollars while Italy and the European Commission pledged 30 and 24 million euros respectively, and China pledged $35 million. Ismail said that Qatar, the state-run Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Abu Dhabi Investment Fund and a Turkish state fund have said they will donate. He said the forum discussed 177 projects requiring some $4.2 billion of pledges. A total of 149 projects needing $2.2 billion were aimed at fighting poverty and for infrastructure development, while 28 projects were geared for development of agriculture, industry and others at a cost of $2 billion. –Agence France
