By Hauwa Ali
The Government of Liberia has received the World Bank’s Third Inclusive Growth Development fund of U.S.$106 Million, another big push in development financing.
The development financing is supportive of the achievements of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD).
52% of the fund will go toward budget support, 30% will finance the health sector and 18 percent willl finance the Fishery sector respectively.
According to the release, resources allotted to budget support will help remove some of the distortions in selected sectors by strengthening public sector transparency and promoting economic and inclusive growth.
Developed and developing countries continue to suffer from the vestiges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the recent OPEC+ decision to reduce the production of oil by 2 million barrels per day.
The effects of these shocks have led to increase in prices of fuel, rice, fertilizers, and other demand driven commodities. Responses by African Governments through subsidies have only had temporal and not sustainable effects. The effective utilization of the World Bank budget support as expected will address some of these economic blockades amid rising inflation and supply chain hurdles.
Support to the health sector will focus on improving health service delivery to women, children, and adolescents. Under the framework of Institutional Foundations to Improve Services for Health Projects (IFISH), it is expected that the project will build upon ongoing quality improvement and resilience building activities. The project is both a credit from the International Development Assistance (IDA) and a grant from the Global Financing Facility (GFF).
The $20 million funding to the Fishery sector which comes from the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) is geared towards supporting the sustainable management of the Fisheries sector in the Country while enhancing the livelihood and income of the project beneficiaries. The project will focus on improving management and governance of fisheries, improving value addition to fish and fish products as well as support to aquaculture development management.