Artillery shells kill child, wound others in Goma
* Funding pledge contingent on parties honouring peace deal
* Artillery shells kill child, wound others in Goma
* UN's Ban, World Bank chief to visit Goma on Thursday (Adds Ban quote, U.N. peacekeeper)
By Anna Yukhananov
KINSHASA, May 22 (Reuters) - The World Bank pledged $1 billion on Wednesday to fund development in central Africa's Great Lakes region in return for peace but fighting in eastern Congo underscored the challenge of stabilising the mineral-rich area.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim unveiled the proposed aid for one of Africa's most conflict-ridden regions on the first day of a trip with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
The tour coincided with further clashes between Congo's army and fighters from the M23 rebel group near the eastern city of Goma on the border with Rwanda, where at least 20 people have been killed this week.
After six months of relative calm, artillery exchanges erupted for a third day on Wednesday. One person was killed and at least four injured when a stray rebel shell fell on a densely populated area of Goma, the U.N. peacekeeping mission said.
Kim and Ban are due to travel to the city on Thursday.
The U.N. secretary general told Reuters on Tuesday that the $1 billion to help finance health and education services, hydro-electric projects and cross-border trade was contingent on countries honouring a peace deal brokered by the United Nations.
The aid package is part of efforts to link immediate security with lasting political and economic solutions, giving countries an incentive to stick with peace.
"We believe this can be a major contributor to a lasting peace in the Great Lakes region," Ban said in a statement on Wednesday. "This funding will help revitalise economic development, create jobs, and improve the lives of people who have suffered for far too long."
The biggest chunk of the aid - $340 million - will go towards an 80-megawatt hydroelectric project in Rusumo Falls, providing electricity to Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania to ease chronic black-outs.
PEACE DIVIDEND
African leaders signed a deal in February seeking to end two decades of conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Among the 11 signatories were Rwanda and Uganda, both accused by U.N. experts of supporting the M23 rebels who had hived off a fiefdom in Congo's North Kivu province. The two countries deny this.
"A peace agreement must deliver a peace dividend. That is why Dr. Jim Kim and I are making this visit," Ban said. It is the first joint visit to Africa by the heads of the organisations, the World Bank said.
After meeting Congo's President Laurent Kabila, Ban said he was deeply concerned by this week's fighting. The clashes were the first since November, when M23 troops routed the army and briefly seized Goma, brushing aside U.N. peacekeepers.
"I have urged President Kabila to give appropriate instruction to the army to strictly abide by the international humanitarian law and protect the lives of the civilian population," Ban told reporters.
Human Rights Watch said a 2-year-old girl was killed and at least three other children wounded when the rebel shell fell in Goma's Ndosho neighbourhood.
"It's M23 who fired on Goma but it was in error," said Colonel Premanku Kosh from the U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO.
Another two women and four children were wounded when three shells landed near camps for war-displaced civilians on the western outskirts of the city late on Tuesday, HRW said.
Talks between M23 and Congo's government in Uganda have stalled. M23 is made up of members of a previous Tutsi-dominated rebellion who integrated into the army after a 2009 peace deal.
But they deserted en masse last year and have stepped up training in preparation for the deployment of a U.N. brigade with a mandate to neutralise armed groups across the region. (Additional reporting by Chrispin Mvano in Goma; Writing by Pascal Fletcher and Joe Bavier; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Alison Williams)
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