Afghanistan Extractive Sector Development Project (AESD)

dropped

The proposed AESD is a third generation technical assistance project in the extractives sector, and will continue to providesupport to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GoIRA) for advisory services and capacity building, focusingstrengthening administrative capacities and developing investment opportunities on the mining and gas sectors. The project will beorganized around four components, including Component 1) Supporting Mining Developoment; Component 2) Sustaining Gas Supply;Component 3) Strengthening Sector Governance; and Component 4) Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation.Within the AESDPproject, increasing capacity to deliver commercial quality natural gas to off-takers in Sheberghan and Mazar is part of acomprehensive and integrated World Bank / IFC / MIGA approach to boost energy access in Afghanistan. The proposed project createsthe conditions for the sustainable supply of natural gas in the long term by attracting private investments into the Totimaidan GasBlock, by creating conditions of improved sector governance and institutional capacity to ensure transparent non-discretionaryregulatory oversight, and by strengthening gas infrastructure through gas processing and new transport capacity to end-use IPPs.These AESDP is essential to de-risking investments for the downstream IPP projects, without which they would not besustainable:(a) the Mazar-e-Sharif Gas-to-Power Project (P157827) which includes a loan from the International FinanceCorporation (IFC) and guarantees from the World Bank backstopping invoices to DABS for electricity delivery and MIGA guaranteeingpayments for termination of contract; and (b) the Sheberghan Gas-to- Power Project (P166405) which includes the World Bankguaranteeing contract termination.