Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 01:24:18 am


 
Analyst hails Pakistan-World Bank partnership for social development
March 18, 2025

Hamayun Iqbal Shami (Economist): Pakistan-World Bank program is for ten years and its total tune is around $20 billion. It is not the new program, rather partnership between Pakistan and World Bank spans over decades. So this program may be termed as an extension of ongoing collaboration between the two sides. Under this phase the World Bank specifies poverty and social sectors for special focus of this program. Most of the sectors falling in this program are part of SDGs, but majority of them have been devolved to provinces through 18th constitutional amendment. But the problem is that the provinces don’t possess capacity to implement the World Bank’s program due to lack of capacity. Provinces did not increase their capacity even after the passage of 18th amendment. Only Punjab province possesses capacity to implement the projects. The implementation of World Bank program may be somewhat problematic because World Bank funding is not aid, it is loan which will have to be paid back after a specified time. So if the provinces fail to implement this program, then it will incur financial loss to the nation.