Finance Minister and World Bank Representative discuss new assistance strategy for Guyana
| Caribbean Net News |
| Published on Friday, November 7, 2008 |
| GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA): Minister of Finance Dr Ashni Singh and other senior officers from the Ministry Thursday met with the new resident Representative of the World Bank to Guyana Angela Demas at the Ministry of Finance where they discussed the Bank’s new assistance strategy for Guyana. This new strategy is expected to be approved in early 2009 to align World Bank support to the revised national development agenda. Singh also shared recent economic developments that occurred, most notably improvements in infrastructure, social and economic sectors. In 2003, the World Bank approved a three-year Country Strategy (CAS) for Guyana which was aimed at supporting key objectives of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). These included stimulating economic growth and increasing the country’s productivity in key sectors such as sugar. Improving governance and increasing the accountability and transparency of the public sector, the quality and delivery of basic services, including health, education, water supply, safety nets and promoting environmentally sustainable development were all areas targeted. At present several World Bank projects are ongoing. These include the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (2008) geared to support Guyana in leveraging the preservation of forest reserves for national development, a US$3.8M Global Environment Facility Conservancy Adaptation project (2008) which will reduce the vulnerability to catastrophic flooding in low lying coastal areas that are threatened by sea level rise. In addition there are the National Statistical Development project, the US$11.3M Bagasse Cogeneration project initiated in 2005 and the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control project initiated in 2004 at the cost of US$10M which provides grant financing to support Guyana National HIV/AIDS Strategic plan for 2002-2006 and 2006-2010. The Finance Minister expressed his appreciation to the Bank for its positive engagement in Guyana’s development agenda. |