World Bank Group (WBG) has not so far approved any new partnership strategy that identifies lending to Pakistan for the next five years as consultations are still under way. Sources said that the strategy paper is still under consultation and has not been approved for implementation.
Business Recorder sent a question to the World Bank about planned assistance/loans and grant assistance under IDA partnership strategy and was informed that this time the partnership strategy is for five years, instead of the previous three years, and would be implemented from the next fiscal year contingent to approval of the WB Board expected to meet in May, 2014. An official on condition of anonymity said lending of $10 billion by the WB to Pakistan in the next five years may not be realistic as $5.5 billion was planned under last three-year partnership strategy for poverty reduction and development agenda.
An official of Finance Ministry said it would be premature to forecast how much Pakistan would receive under the partnership strategy in the next five years. The Finance Minister has reportedly taken a briefing from the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) ahead of leaving for Washington to attend the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/WB spring meeting scheduled for April 11-13, 2014. The Minister also wants to take up the issue of new Bank support for Pakistan in the next five years.
Analysts state that lending by the WB and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to Pakistan is also contingent on Pakistan''s compliance record under the 6.64 billion dollar IMF Extended Fund Facility programme citing the cessation of all programme lending/budgetary support by these two multilaterals when Pakistan failed to comply with the conditions set under the 2008 Stand-By Arrangement (SBA).
The IMF has been largely supportive of the present government''s failure to comply with some critical time bound conditions and has granted waivers during the two reviews; however, the IMF was also supportive of the former government for the first year and a half of the SBA in spite of failure to meet critical time bound conditions.
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