Myanmar will be the recipient of additional financial support from the World Bank (WB) Group. The bank have already committed to US$2 billion to the country to support reforms and reduce poverty. Since his visit to Myanmar in January of this year, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and the World Bank Group, has committed to extending the $2 billion for a multi-year development program which will include projects that will dramatically improve access to energy and healthcare for poor people and support other key government development priorities. The plan aims to achieve a target of universal health coverage as well as access to electricity by 2030.
An estimated 75 percent of Myanmar’s mostly rural population lack access to quality healthcare and high costs place most essential services out of reach for many Myanmar families who live below the poverty line, the WB indicated.
Of the $2 billion support, WB wants to invest $1 billion in Myanmar’s power sector including generation, transmission and distribution over the next five years. With this funding from WB and the private sector, Myanmar could increase access to electricity for 50 percent of the population by 2020. Currently 70 percent of Myanmar’s population lack access to electricity.
President Kim noted that investing in Myanmar’s electricity potential will not only improve the lives of its citizens, but will also create a better business environment, believing that this in turn will create jobs and help the country prosper and reduce poverty.
The WB group also plans to invest $200 million to support the government’s effort to achieve universal health coverage. In the agriculture sector, they expressed a readiness to help Myanmar with technical assistance and funding to improve its agricultural productivity.
Agriculture, which accounts for 43 percent of Myanmar’s gross domestic product (GDP), generates about 54 pc of employment and provides livelihoods to more than 70 pc of the population.
By June of this year, the WB group will have committed more than $700 million to Myanmar.
WB group pledged to stand with Myanmar to overcome the major challenges that lie ahead and to help it dramatically increase access to electricity and health and significantly improve agriculture production.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s development partners agreed to prioritize implementation of specific sectors including achievable programs under the Economic and Social Reform Framework.
Moreover, the Asian Development Bank ADB) also pledged to provide a new loan 60 million U.S. dollars to Myanmar to be sed in power sector.
ADB’s pledge came a month after the WB’s when ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda visited Nay Pyi Taw, offering Myanmar assistance in infrastructural development in terms of technology, finance, communication and sustainable energy.
After Myanmar’s settlement of 512 million U.S. dollars’ debt in January 2013 owed to the ADB, ADB has resumed social and economic assistance to help Myanmar build a strong foundation for poverty alleviation schemes and reform process.
