ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan and World Bank signed in Islamabad on Wednesday four agreements to provide a loan worth US $ 650 million to support projects in education, health, water and disaster sectors of Pakistan.
Tariq Bajwa, Secretary, Economic Affairs Division signed the Financing Agreements on behalf of Government of Pakistan while representatives of Governments of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan signed the Project Agreements on behalf of their respective governments.
Patchamuthu Illangovan, Country Director, World Bank, signed the agreements on behalf of the World Bank.
Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar witnessed the signing ceremony of the four agreements.
Finance Minister thanked World Bank for their support while Country Director, World Bank appreciated Pakistan’s progress in economic reform and stabilization, especially over the last three years.
According to details $200 million would be given for Balochistan Integrated Water Resources Management and Development Project.
The project development objectives are to strengthen provincial government capacity for water resources monitoring and management and to improve community based water management for targeted irrigation schemes in Balochistan.
For the third Punjab Education Sector Project (PESP-III), the World Bank would provide a loan of $300 million.
The objective of the project is to support Punjab to improve school participation, completion and teaching-learning practices with a particular focus on Low Performing Districts. The project consists of the following parts:
Similarly the World Bank would provide $100 million for Sindh Resilience Project through which flood and drought risks would be mitigated in selected areas and Sindh’s capacity to manage natural disasters would be strengthened.
The project would help in strengthening Disaster and Climate Risk Management, improving Infrastructure and Systems for Resilience and contingent Emergency Response.
An amount of $50 million would be given by the World Bank for National Immunization Support Project (NISP) to increase the equitable coverage of services for immunization against Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD), including poliomyelitis, for children between 0 and 23 months in Pakistan.
On the occasion, the Finance Minister also hoped that the completion of these projects will add to the general welfare of the public as promised by the government.
