#Headlines

World Bank pledges US$160b to fight covid-19 in developing countries

May 27, 2020, 1:00 PM | Article By: Musa Musa Sanneh

The World Bank has pledged 160 billion US dollars grant to provide financial support to fight covid-19 in 100 developing countries.

The beneficiary countries include The Gambia, Senegal, Ghana, Niger, Haiti, Pakistan and others.
The World Bank Group described the multi billion dollar covid-19 relief package in a recent report as the largest and fastest crisis response in the history of the bank.

"The pandemic and shut down of advanced economies could push as many as 60 million people into extreme poverty erasing much of the progress made in poverty alleviation,” said World Bank President David Malpass."
The World Bank group said it has moved quickly and decisively to establish emergency response operations in100 countries with mechanisms that allowed other donors to rapidly expand the programmes.
World Bank Group said: "To return to growth, our goal must be rapid and flexible responses to tackle the health emergency, provide cash and other expandable support to protect the poor, maintain the private sector and strengthen economic resilience and recovery."
The bank revealed that 39 of beneficiary countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, indicating that nearly one third of the total projects are in fragile and conflict affected situations such as Niger, Haiti and Chad, among other countries.
Disbursements are underway as 20 million will be allocated to Senegal and 35 million each to Ghana, Philippines and Pakistan, the World Bank unveiled.