Bangladesh has sought US$6.0 billion worth of foreign assistance from the World Bank in the upcoming three-year aid package for developing its infrastructures, officials said.
Based on the pipeline projects, Bangladesh has sought the assistance from the Washington-based global lender for development works over the next three years, Economic Relations Division (ERD) officials said Friday.
The WB is framing the "International Development Assistance (IDA)-20" aid package, to be continued between the fiscal year (FY) 2022-23 and FY2025, for helping its member-countries, one senior ERD official told the FE.
"We have shared our next projects with the World Bank where Bangladesh will require nearly $6.0 billion worth of assistance in next three years. We are hopeful of getting the extended support from the global lender," he said.
Bangladesh has already received confirmation of more than $3.0 billion worth of loans and grants from the WB and expected to get some more $1.0 billion till June 2022 from the ongoing IDA-19 package.
Currently, the WB is supporting its member-countries financially and technically under the ongoing IDA-19 package, to be ended in the current FY2022.
Meanwhile, the WB has already decided to reduce the ongoing IDA-19 aid package front-loading its $82 billion assistance within first two years up to FY2022 from the three-year rollout period aimed at extending financial support to the members amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The development financier launched an early-20th replenishment process of the IDA, its fund for the world's poorest countries, aiming to support countries in their recovery from the Covid-19 crisis and transition to green, resilient, and inclusive development.
The IDA-20 replenishment will be finalised in December next with a policy and financial package to support 74 countries between July 2022 and June 2025.
The Washington-based lender has proposed there types of amount for the upcoming IDA-20 package. Those are: $85 billion, $90 billion and $95 billion.
Based on the IDA-20 replenishment by the donor countries, the WB would finalise the upcoming aid package from the above-mentioned three options.
According to the WB, the IDA-19 three-year cycle started in July 2020 with $23.5-billion donor contributions aiming to enable a total of $82 billion financing to IDA countries.
Almost half of this amount has been committed to the world's poorest countries in the first year (FY2020) of the IDA19 cycle, necessitating advancing IDA-20 so that additional financial resources can be available for countries to meet their urgent development needs, the WB said.
In February 2021, IDA donor-and borrower-country representatives agreed to advance IDA-20 by one year due to pressures of the COVID-19 crisis.
The IDA is one of the largest sources of funding for fighting extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries. It is the concessional loan which has up to 30 years of maturity with 2 per cent interest and service charges.
The WB is the biggest development partner of Bangladesh which supports some policy loans along with bankrolling different development projects to cut deficit financing in the national budget.
