The World Bank and Bangladesh inked a financing deal of $250 million for creating better employment to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and building resilience to fight against future crises.
Economic Relations Division secretary Fatima Yasmin and World Bank’s country director for Bangladesh and Bhutan Mercy Tembon signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisation on Thursday.
The pace of job creation has slowed in recent years, and the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation. Losses in jobs and income put livelihoods of several million at risk in both rural and urban areas. Women and youth have been particularly hard hit, said the global lender in a statement.
The Jobs Development Policy Credit series has helped the government protect 5 million jobs, and enabled firms to continue paying their workers’ wages.
It also supported the migrant workers who have had to return to Bangladesh due to the pandemic.
The program will also support informal micro-entrepreneurs in recovering by extending micro-finance facilities.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on the poor and vulnerable population,” said Mercy Tembon.
“This financing supports government policies to protect those most affected by the pandemic and create more and jobs as Bangladesh continues its journey towards its vision of becoming an upper-middle income country,” she said.
“The government has taken fast and proactive measures to protect the poor and vulnerable population and to mitigate the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on formal and informal businesses,” said Fatima Yasmin.
“This program has helped protect the jobs and income of poor and vulnerable people while laying the groundwork for building resiliency to future shocks.”
With this program, total World Bank financing under the Programmatic Jobs Development Policy Credit series stands at $750 million.
The credit is from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides concessional financing, has a 30-year term, including a five-year grace period.
Bangladesh currently has the largest ongoing IDA program totaling over $14 billion.
The World Bank was among the first development partners to support Bangladesh and has committed more than $35 billion in grants, interest-free and concessional credits to the country since its Independence.
