World Bank to channel US$450m to economy

The World Bank Group has pledged to channel an estimated amount of US$450 million facility for the year 2010 to help strengthen the economy.

The long-term interest-free repayment loan entails a budget support of US$250 million and sector-specific project supports of US$200 million.

Areas such as enhancing commercial agriculture, building capacity in the oil and gas sector, and improving Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will benefit from this support.

Managing Director of the World Bank Group, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who disclosed this in Accra at the end of her two-day working visit to the country, explained that the Group as part of its strategic plans for the country will help scale-up the irrigation projects in the agricultural sector to promote employment generation and reduce poverty.

The Group will also offer capacity-building training programmes to enhance personnel development in the educational sector for the full operation of the oil and gas sector.

She urged government to strategise diversifying the economy, using the expected revenue from oil and gas for socio-economic development.

“Transparency, accountability, human resource development and use of local content in the oil and gas industry should be key in managing the resources for development,” she said.Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, who expressed confidence in the economy, stressed that Ghana could practice value-added agriculture to create more jobs - especially for the youth.

She indicated that Ghana tripled its annual export of horticultural products in recent times, indicating signs of major improvement and huge untapped potential in the export of agricultural commodities.

Touching on the economic potential of the African continent, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, revealed that an amount of US$93 billion has been directed to support Africa’s infrastructural development and regional integration.

“The Group’s attention for Africa’s social and economic developmental has gone up in recent years,” she disclosed, pointing out that development aid alone will not be enough to solve all of Africa’s needs.

She proposed that African countries need to focus on how to mobilise domestic resources to support private sector growth.

According to her, the socio-economic potential of the continent is highly underutilised, citing that only 44 percent of the continent’s arable land is used for agriculture and with only 11 percent of farmers using improved seeds.

Trade data on countries in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) show that ECOWAS imports over US$3 billion a year of rice, fish, meat, and palm oil from the rest of the world.

Meat is sourced all the way from Argentina and Australia while rice and palm oil are sourced from East Asia. The intriguing aspect is that some of the fish are caught illegally by foreigners in West African waters, just for them to be exported later to the sub-region.