At the very end of January, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EBRD signed an 18-year sovereign-guaranteed $150 million loan to finance the construction of a 44-kilometre stretch of the M41 road, the main transport corridor in the country linking Tajikistan with the Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and China.
The investment is part of a $402 million project to rebuild the entire road and complements funding from the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
What is significant about the EBRD’s investment that the loan explicitly targets economic benefits for local women.
Along the road, five trading areas will be...