Chad Fifth Structural Adjustment Credit

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The Fifth Structural Adjustment Credit Project supports a medium-term reform program focusing on two of the five strategic axes identified in Chad's full Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP): 1) promote good governance; and 2) ensure strong and sustained growth. Like its predecessor, SAC IV, it focuses on strengthening governance and public resource management as necessary conditions for improved service delivery to the poor, especially in view of the advent of first oil revenues expected in the second semester of 2003; and eliminating constraints to growth and poverty reduction in the rural sector. The reforms supported by SAC V aim to achieve poverty reduction by: (i) enhanced transparency, accountability, and adherence to the rule of law through adopting and implementing a governance strategy and action plan; (ii) more transparent, accountable, and efficient use of public resources for poverty reduction through reforming the budget cycle, public procurement, and the civil service; and (iii) sustainable growth in rural areas through a profound reform of the cotton sector and improved access to micro-finance. In each of these reform areas, particular attention is given to empowering the independent institutions that are destined to provide the checks and balances for the efficient management of resources for poverty reduction-the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, the press, and civil society, including farmers' associations.