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BURUNDI: GOVERNMENT GETS US $6.1 MILLION IN GRANTS FROM FRANCE February 8, 2006
Apunyu Bonny
(SomaliNet) A total of US $6.1 million (5.1-million euros) has been granted to Burundi by France for education projects and to strengthen security, a French official said in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, at the end of a two-day visit to the country. IRIN reported Monday.
French Foreign Minister, Philippe Douste Blazy said that France, through the UN World Food Programme, would also give another 500,000 euros ($600,180) as its contribution to an emergency food operation,
"Burundi is one of the unusual countries, which have smoothly conducted its [political] transitional process," he said.
Burundi is expected to serve as a good example in Africa's Great Lakes region as well as a model to other conflict-stricken countries. Blazy revealed.
"We are waiting for a formal note of the release of the 500,000 euros contribution from the French embassy in Bujumbura, in a bid to know the allocation of the emergency food aid," Guillaume Foliot, a WFP programme officer, told IRIN, Tuesday.