Interesting that they are putting $200 million into a gold project in the first quater of the year, sounds familiar.

The Central African Republic (CAR) has signed in the end of November 2012 an investment agreement worth $200 Million with the World Sports Alliance (WSA).

The money will be provided directly by the WSA, an intergovernmental organisation with 30 member states . The mission of the organisation is to ‘use sport as a catalyst to design and implement programmes for at-risk youth, to facilitate in realising the Millennium Developments Goals through an integrated approach.’

The bilateral investment agreement will focus primarily on the areas of natural resources mining, energy and agricultural bio-fertilizers. Jacques Bouchard, senior advisor for politic affairs at WSA told New Europe that this was the first time an organisation’s project dealt with generating funds through mining concessions.
 

He also said that two concessions for a joint period of 30 years which the Central African Republic has granted were related to the exploitation of diamantiferous and gold bearing deposits in the country.

Bouchard further explained that 39% of the revenues coming from the two concessions will be re-invested in CAR, while the WSA was to make sure that the highest possible international labour and human rights standards are met in the course of the concessions.

The first phase of the agreement, of a value of USD $10 Billion dollars, is expected to start in the first quarter of 2013. CAR and the WSA anticipate that some 3,000 permanent jobs will be created as a result of the global settlement, leading to positive repercussions on the local economy of one of the poorest places in the world.