World Bank Provides New US$500 million Loan to Boost Ukraine’s Reforms | WPN World People News

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors Wednesday approved a US$500 million IBRD loan to finance the Second Multi-Sector Development Policy Operation in Ukraine. This new financing supports a number of high-priority structural and macroeconomic reforms to improve the country’s public sector governance, business environment, energy and social assistance.

“The package of reforms supported by this operation will help address the deep-rooted structural problems that have contributed to Ukraine’s current economic crisis,” said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine. “We are helping Ukraine to implement an urgent set of measures, which will be essential to stabilize the economy, provide quality services to all Ukrainians and return the country to a sustainable growth path.”

In particular, reform measures supported by this loan – the second in a series of two – will promote good governance, transparency, and accountability in the public sector. The loan ensures that scarce public resources will be used effectively to provide quality public services at a crucial time. At the same time, the operation will support efforts to strengthen the regulatory framework and reduce the cost of doing business. This should help unleash the private enterprise and help create sustainable and good quality jobs for Ukrainians. Finally, this operation will assist the authorities to continue reforming inefficient and inequitable utility subsidies while protecting the poor from tariff increases by strengthening social assistance.

This operation is part of the World Bank Group’s broader financial support package announced in February this year, which aims to provide Ukraine with up to US$2 billion in 2015. The US$750 million First Multi-Sector Development Policy Loan was disbursed in May 2014.

The World Bank is a major development partner of Ukraine. With this new investment, the Bank’s active lending portfolio will amount to over US$5 billion. The Bank’s current investments go into improving basic public services that directly benefit people of the country, such as water, sanitation, heating, power, roads, social safety net programs and health services. Since Ukraine joined the World Bank in 1992, the Bank’s commitments to the country have totaled over US$9 billion for 45 projects and programs.

Source: World Bank