World Bank approves US$200 mn aid for Pakistan

WASHINGTON: The World Bank has approved the provision of US$200 million to Pakistan, days after the country reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the release of US$1.17 billion, ARY NEWS reported.

The amount has been provided as aid to the country as the bank has so far provided US$40 billion in this regard and currently 60 projects worth US$14 billion are ongoing with the support of the World Bank.

According to details, US$200 million would be provided to the Punjab province for improving the agriculture sector and funding projects owned by small farmers besides also upgrading the latter with technology to deal with climate change impact.

As many as 190,000 farmers would benefit from the program and it will help improve the provision of water supplies to 1,400,000 million acres of land.

It is pertinent to mention here that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Pakistan recently reached a staff-level agreement for the release of US$1.17 billion under the combined 7th and 8th reviews of Pakistan’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

A statement issued by the Fund said that the agreement is subject to approval by the IMF’s Executive Board.

“Additionally, in order to support program implementation and meet the higher financing needs in FY23, as well as catalyze additional financing, the IMF Board will consider an extension of the EFF until end-June 2023 and an augmentation of access by SDR 720 million that will bring the total access under the EFF to about US$7 billion.”