DAR ES SALAAM - Rich nations must make a special effort to fund African Development Bank (AfDB) projects helping the continent's poorest countries when the current facility ends this year, the bank's president said on Monday.

Donald Kaberuka will hold a final round of talks with donors on Dec 11-12 in London aimed at securing financial support for the bank's next 3-year cycle of concessional lending up to 2010.

"We are going for an ambitious increase," he told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a regional trade forum in Tanzania.

"I'm confident the contributors ... will be ambitious enough to provide adequate resources for the poorer countries of Africa to be able to encourage the current very good progress Africa is making."

Kaberuka forecast average economic growth for the continent of up to 7 percent next year, and said half-a-dozen mostly fossil fuel-exporting nations might even see double-digit growth.

Despite that, many African countries are not expected to hit targets under the Millennium Development Goals -- benchmarks agreed at the turn of the century to measure progress towards alleviating poverty.

"This is it, this is the time for the donors to make a special effort," Kaberuka said. "If the effort should be made, it should be made now."

The former Rwandan finance minister has led wide-ranging reforms at the Tunis-based bank including setting up more field offices. New outposts are expected in Angola and Algeria before the end of the year, completing the bank's target of 25 offices.

"BUILD ON BOOM"

He said 60 percent of AfDB's portfolio was now dedicated to what he called the core of the productive sector, for instance energy, roads, irrigation, water and sanitation projects.

The bank has also tripled its private sector lending to more than $1 billion this year, and plans to expand its bond issues soon with paper denominated in Egyptian pounds, Moroccan dirhams and the West African CFA franc.

"This ability to focus on a few things with the productive sector is enabling us to increase efficiency dramatically," he said.

But the road ahead will largely be mapped out by donors' response to the appeal for the ADF11 -- the concessional fund for the next three years.

Kaberuka said the bank had contributed $30 million of its own money to the last three-year cycle, the ADF10.

"The chances are that under ADF11 we shall double that amount from our internal resources to send a signal," he said.

"I'm very bullish about African economies over the next couple of years," he added. "What is important is for African countries to build on the current boom."