Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development : World Bank in­vests 75 bil­lion US dol­lars in poor­est coun­tries

Press re­lease of 15.12.2016 |

YO­GYAKARTA - The ne­go­ti­a­tions on the 18th re­plen­ish­ment of the World Bank's win­dow for the poor­est coun­tries have been con­cluded suc­cess­fully. Over the next three years, the In­ter­na­tional De­vel­op­ment As­so­ci­a­tion (IDA) will in­vest more than 75 bil­lion US dol­lars in the de­vel­op­ment of these coun­tries. This is about one and a half times the amount avail­able for the last three years.

Ger­man De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Gerd Müller said, 'We have man­aged to sig­nif­i­cantly in­crease the World Bank's im­pact for the world's poor­est coun­tries. To­gether, we will give poor peo­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties for a bet­ter fu­ture - through jobs, cli­mate ac­tion, and ef­forts to tackle the root causes of dis­place­ment. We have agreed to add a new di­men­sion to our co­op­er­a­tion with Africa.'

Dur­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tions, Ger­many was able to get a num­ber of im­por­tant points in­cluded in the agree­ment. Over the next three years, the In­ter­na­tional De­vel­op­ment As­so­ci­a­tion will in­crease its ef­forts to tackle the causes of dis­place­ment, step up its sup­port for pri­vate in­vest­ment and for vo­ca­tional train­ing, in­vest more in cli­mate ac­tion, and place a fo­cus on Africa.

will dou­ble its sup­port for frag­ile states, bring­ing it to about 14 bil­lion dol­lars. One fo­cus of this as­sis­tance will be on tack­ling the root causes of dis­place­ment. Three bil­lion dol­lars will be al­lo­cated to cri­sis re­sponse re­serves. That is twice the amount pre­vi­ously avail­able.

Two bil­lion dol­lars will be avail­able to sup­port coun­tries that host refugees. One bil­lion dol­lars will be ear­marked for pos­si­ble re­con­struc­tion in Syria should the con­flict have ended.

The World Bank will pro­mote pri­vate in­vest­ment in the world's poor­est coun­tries through guar­an­tees, risk mit­i­ga­tion and lo­cal cur­rency loans. Two and a half bil­lion dol­lars will be avail­able for such op­er­a­tions.

Cli­mate in­vest­ment will al­most triple, reach­ing ap­prox­i­mately 20 bil­lion dol­lars.

IDA will in­vest more than 60 per cent of its fund­ing in Africa.

Ger­many is the fourth largest donor to IDA. Over a pe­riod of seven years, it will pro­vide a to­tal of about 1.6 bil­lion eu­ros to IDA's 18th re­plen­ish­ment.