Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug 21
By Fakhri Vakilov-Trend:
In July 2019, during a visit of World Bank Vice President for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller to Tashkent, the Government of Uzbekistan and the World Bank signed loan and financing agreements for the projects totaling over $656.85 million, an official from WB told Trend in an interview.
The WB representative added that these projects have been approved by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors in the last several months with the aim to support the Government’s reforms in different sectors
The projects include the following:
Sustaining Market Reforms in Uzbekistan Development Policy Operation – International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) loan of $500 million (June 2019);
Promoting Early Childhood Development Project – International Development Association (IDA) credit of $59.5 million and Global Partnership for Education (GPE)/Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid (GPOBA) grants of $14.35 million (May 2019);
Strengthening the Social Protection System Project – IDA credit of $50 million (July 2019); and
Institutional Capacity Building Project – IDA credit of $33 million (May 2019).
All these organization are part of the World Bank.
The official also spoke about future World Bank projects in Uzbekistan.
“In Fiscal Year 2020-2021, the World Bank is planning to provide funding for a number of projects in Uzbekistan including those that will help the government improve water services, internet connectivity, and access to quality basic infrastructure and services in targeted rural communities,” the WB representative said.
The official added that these projects will also allow the country's government to increase electricity generation capacity through private investment in the energy sector and support agricultural modernization and competitiveness.
The World Bank has scaled up its support to Uzbekistan since the start of the country’s social and economic transformation in 2017.
“Today, our program in Uzbekistan is the second largest in the Europe and Central Asia region, with 22 projects totaling $4.08 billion,” the representative stressed.
Finally, the official added that these projects are supporting economic and institutional reforms, agriculture, health, education, water supply and sanitation, energy, transport, social protection system, and urban development.
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