World Bank approves $600 million loan for Pakistan

 

World Bank approves $600 million loan for Pakistan

LAHORE (Dunya News) - The World Bank Board of Directors on Thursday approved $ 600 million in International Development Association (IDA) funding for the Crisis Resilient Social Protection Program (CRISP) that will help Pakistan expand Ehsaas, the national poverty. relief program, to protect vulnerable households and increase resilience to economic shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of families in Pakistan are facing economic difficulties, especially those working in the informal sector, who have no savings or are not covered by existing health care programs," Najy said. Benhassine, World Bank Country Director of Pakistan. "This investment helps Ehsaas develop an adaptive social protection system that is more efficient and offers a new model for responding to shocks and building household resilience to future shocks."

CRISP will facilitate the gradual expansion of Ehsaas social protection programs to better reach informal workers through an innovative and hybrid approach that combines social assistance and the promotion of higher savings in which informal workers, especially women, they can trust in the event of economic crises. It will provide a platform through which the government can respond quickly to support the worst affected households during an economic crisis.

"In a crisis, a more flexible and dynamic social protection system can dramatically reduce the time it takes to respond to people's needs and promote a faster recovery," said Amjad Zafar Khan, leader of the Resistance Task Force. the crises. Social protection program.

CRISP will also enhance the ability of the social registry to maintain accurate household data and exchange data between social programs while providing a greater variety of beneficiaries in biometric payment systems. It will also help Pakistan cope with the long-term impacts on human capital caused by the pandemic, resulting from the neglect of medical and health services and a substantial loss of education due to prolonged absence from schools.

To help prevent losses in human capital accumulation, which is essential for long-term resilience, CRISP builds on two existing Ehsaas programs that provide conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to eligible households. These include Waseela-e-Taleem, a CCT program linked to elementary school attendance, and Nashonuma, a nutrition-focused CCT program aimed at improving child and maternal health, which will benefit more than three million families in the whole country.