Functions of World Bank in Pakistan Prepared and presented by : Mehrose Amin Madadali 11653

The World Bank is one of the world’s largest sources of funding and knowledge to support governments of member countries in their efforts to invest in schools and health centers, provide water and electricity, fight disease and protect the environment.

A Bank owned by 184 countries The financial support and advice the World Bank provides its member countries is designed to help them fight poverty unlike commercial banks, the World Bank often lends at little or no interest to countries that are unable to raise money for development anywhere else It has a good credit because it has large, well-managed financial reserves. This means that it can borrow money at low interest rates from capital markets all over the world and channel it to developing countries, at lower interest rates.

People sometimes confuse the World Bank with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although the IMF’s functions complement those of the World Bank, it is a totally separate organization. While the World Bank provides support to developing countries, the IMF aims to stabilize the international monetary system and monitors the world’s currencies.

World Bank offers 2 basic types of loans: 1.Investment loans for goods, work and services to support economic and social development projects in a broad range of sectors 2.Adjustment loans to support policy and institutional reforms World Bank supervises how each loan is used and evaluate the results. All loans are governed by operational policies, which make sure that operations are economically, financially, socially and environmentally sound.

Supporting reforms at both the federal and provincial level The Federal and Provincial Governments aim to encourage growth, investment, and employment generation. Reforms at the provincial level aims to provide education, health, clean drinking water, and sanitation. In June 2007, the World Bank approved a US$350 million credit to support ongoing implementation of the Government's Poverty Reduction Strategy. At the provincial level, the Bank approved operations worth US$430 million for Punjab, Sindh and the North West Frontier Province to help improve irrigation, education and human development etc.

Working with Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund to bring difference in the lives of poor. The World Bank funded Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund Project (PPAF), designed to reduce poverty and empower the rural and urban poor in Pakistan. Includes providing the poor with micro-credit loans; grants for small scale infrastructure projects; training and skill development and social sector interventions. The program is impacting over 10 million people and has mobilized over 66,000 community organizations (COs) in 27,000 localities across 111 districts in the country. PPAF has issued 1.5 million micro-credit loans, (average loan-size US$ 150), benefiting nearly 9 million people.

Helping the victims of the Earthquake. To help the victims of Earthquake of 2005, government created the Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) and launched an ambitious US$1.5 billion owner-driven rebuilding program - largely suited to the mainly rural affected population. Under ERRA’s Rural Housing and Reconstruction Program (RHRP), partially funded by the World Bank, homeowners are given around US$3,000 in installments to build quake-resistant homes - with routine visits by inspection teams to ensure compliance to agreed seismic-resistant standards.

Working with the government to improve education outcomes. The World Bank is providing assistance to the Government of Pakistan in education reforms, at both the national and the provincial level. The programs target increasing participation of girls and children from poorer household through interventions such as student stipends and conditional grant systems and by working in partnership with the private sector to provide access to low cost quality education. The World Bank is also assisting the government in improving the quality and relevance of its higher education and technical and vocational training system.

Joining with international partners to help Pakistan fight polio The World Bank has approved 2 projects; of US$42.71 million in 2003 and of US $ million in 2006 for Pakistan to purchase the oral polio vaccine. The money is part of an innovative financing partnership (IDA Buy-down) between the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International, and the United Nations Foundation. Since 1997 the number of polio cases has decreased from 1147 to 31 in Based on an independent third party assessment, the first credit (US$ million) has been converted into a grant and written off for the Government of Pakistan.

Focusing on un-served and underserved low-income communities In NWFP and AJK, World Bank projects are supporting delivery of cost effective and sustainable community development schemes. The role and capabilities of local governments at the district and lower levels have been strengthened to extend technical, financial, and management support to Community-Based Organizations (CBOs). CBO are being mobilized and their capacity is being enhanced to increase their participation in development activities. Governance, transparency, and accountability are being more effective through improvements in operational, monitoring and evaluation, and financial and budgetary procedures for project implementation.

Helping Pakistan prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS The key challenge facing the country is to expand and improve quality of HIV preventive services to vulnerable groups that are most at risk of contracting and transmitting the disease. The Bank is supporting the Government efforts to control AIDS through the HIV/AIDS Prevention Project designed to prevent the disease from becoming established in these populations, while at the same time working to protect these groups from stigmatization. The World Bank is also organizing a region wide Development Market place in South Asia Region on “Tackling HIV AND AIDS Stigma and Discrimination”

Helping to ‘improve trade flows’ and ‘lower transit costs and times’. In 2005, the Government of Pakistan launched major initiatives around the National Trade Corridor Improvement Program (NTCIP) to reduce the cost of trade and transport logistics and bring services' quality to international standards in order to reduce the cost of doing business in Pakistan and ultimately enhance competitiveness and industrialization.

“Knowledge Bank.” With operations in more than 180 member countries, World bank is uniquely positioned to share international best practice and provide world class analytical and research services to their clients. Their advisory work includes a number of Pakistan specific reports e.g. Pakistan’s Country Water Resource Assistance Strategy, Pakistan Higher Education Policy Note, Pakistan Promoting Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction, Growth and Export Competitiveness, Pakistan Strategic Country Environment Assessment and Provincial Economic reports. Pakistan’s Country Water Resource Assistance StrategyPakistan Higher Education Policy NotePakistan Promoting Rural Growth and Poverty ReductionGrowth and Export CompetitivenessPakistan Strategic Country Environment AssessmentProvincial Economic reports