World Bank pledges $57 billion for projects in Africa

Following a meeting with G20 finance ministers and central bank governors, the president of the World Bank Group Jim Yong Kim says his outfit is committing 57 billion dollars to finance the next three fiscal of Sub Saharan African countries.

President Kim mentioned that 45 billion dollars out of the total will be provided by the world Bank Group fund for the poorest countries; International development Association(IDA).

The financial package comes with an estimated eight billion dollar for private sector investments from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private sector arm of the World Bank Group and four billion dollars from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

All these facilities are non-concessional public arm sector.

According to a statement released by the World Bank Office and copied to Pulse Business, development partners in December and agreed to a record 75 billion dollars for IDA, a dramatic increase based on an innovative move to blend donor contributions to IDA with World Bank Group internal resources and with funds raised through capital markets.

The statement specified that sixty percent of the IDA financing is expected to be invested in Sub Saharan Africa which has a lot of countries eligible for IDA funding.

The funding is available for the period known as IDA18, which takes off from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2017.

"This represents an unprecedented opportunity to change the development trajectory of the countries in the region," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said.

With this commitment, we will work with our clients to substantially expand programmes in education, basic health services, clean water and sanitation, agriculture, business climate, infrastructure, and institutional reform," he also noted.

Areas to be supported by the financial package

This World Bank Group financing will support transformational projects during the FY18-20 period. IBRD priorities will include health, education, and infrastructure projects such as expanding water distribution and access to power. The priorities for the private sector investment will include infrastructure, financial markets, and agribusiness. IFC also will deepen its engagement in fragile and conflict-affected states and increase climate-related investments.

Expected IDA outcomes include essential health and nutrition services for up to 400 million people, access to improved water sources for up to 45 million, and 5 GW of additional generation capacity for renewable energy.

The scaled-up IDA financing will build on a portfolio of 448 ongoing projects in Africa totaling about $50 billion. Of this, a $1.6 billion financing package is being developed to tackle the impending threat of famine in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions.