{"id":164593,"date":"2020-09-04T10:27:33","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T08:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/coronavirus-madagascar-world-bank-provides-75-million-to-mitigate-the-impacts-of-covid19-and-support-recovery?lang=en"},"modified":"2020-09-04T10:27:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T08:27:33","slug":"coronavirus-madagascar-world-bank-provides-75-million-to-mitigate-the-impacts-of-covid-19-and-support-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/coronavirus-madagascar-world-bank-provides-75-million-to-mitigate-the-impacts-of-covid-19-and-support-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"Coronavirus &#8211; Madagascar: World Bank Provides $75 Million to Mitigate the Impacts of COVID-19 and Support Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/b6f288a36364448\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/large\/b6f288a36364448\" alt=\"The World Bank Group\" style=\"max-width:500px\" \/><\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/files\/download\/b6f288a36364448\">Download logo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The World Bank Board of Directors&nbsp;recently&nbsp;approved&nbsp;a&nbsp;US$75&nbsp;million&nbsp;development policy&nbsp;operation for Madagascar&nbsp;to&nbsp;mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;Madagascar COVID-19 Response Development Policy Financing&nbsp;will help close&nbsp;a&nbsp;financing gap&nbsp;caused by the COVID-19&nbsp;crisis while supporting&nbsp;key reforms to reinforce the effectiveness and transparency of the&nbsp;government&rsquo;s crisis response and to lay the foundation for sustained and resilient recovery.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The economic and fiscal impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Madagascar will be substantial in 2020&nbsp;and&nbsp;could reverse past progress in poverty reduction and deepen fragility. This operation will help the&nbsp;government save lives, protect the livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations and preserve jobs, while implementing policy&nbsp;reforms and strengthening institutions&nbsp;in order to&nbsp;lay the foundation for a stronger social and economic recovery&rdquo;&nbsp;said&nbsp;Marie-Chantal Uwanyiligira, World Bank Country Manager for&nbsp;Madagascar.\u202f<\/p>\n<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially redefined&nbsp;economic&nbsp;prospects, in particular through the collapse of international trade and tourism. Containment measures needed to halt the pandemic also&nbsp;had severe&nbsp;effects&nbsp;on the economy and people&rsquo;s livelihoods.&nbsp;In this context, extreme poverty is predicted to increase in 2020, undoing three years of consecutive declines.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This&nbsp;operation&nbsp;aims to alleviate the immediate impact of the COVID-19 outbreak&nbsp;and&nbsp;to&nbsp;help rebuild a stronger and more resilient economy.&nbsp;Policy&nbsp;commitments made by the Government in the context of&nbsp;this&nbsp;operation&nbsp;include: (i) a multisectoral national emergency plan; (ii) a dedicated COVID-19 Response Fund&nbsp;to&nbsp;transparently&nbsp;manage&nbsp;emergency&nbsp;spending; (iii) the simplified procedures&nbsp;to open individual&nbsp;e-money&nbsp;accounts to facilitate cash transfer&nbsp;payments&nbsp;to vulnerable populations; (iv) a response plan to support the private sector&nbsp;and protect jobs; (v)&nbsp;measures&nbsp;to sustain liquidity and access to credit&nbsp;for viable companies; (vi) new&nbsp;electricity&nbsp;connection and tariff structures,&nbsp;benefiting&nbsp;vulnerable populations;&nbsp;and&nbsp;(vii)&nbsp;measures to boost&nbsp;debt transparency.&nbsp;Together, the&nbsp;program of reforms&nbsp;supported by this operation are expected to have positive effects on poverty. In particular, cash transfers provide direct support to vulnerable groups who have lost income as a result of the crisis and confinement measures, and enhanced access to finance, coupled with the alleviation of short-term costs,&nbsp;can&nbsp;promote business resilience.<\/p>\n<p>This&nbsp;operation is part of&nbsp;a series of&nbsp;World Bank Group country program adjustments&nbsp;that comprise&nbsp;the activation of Contingent Emergency Response Components&nbsp;within the&nbsp;portfolio&nbsp;to support the&nbsp;government&rsquo;s health, social, education, water and sanitation response;&nbsp;the&nbsp;development of&nbsp;new operations responding to the pandemic and reinforcing resilience to future shocks; and&nbsp;the&nbsp;frontloading of&nbsp;future&nbsp;operations&nbsp;to help&nbsp;accelerate&nbsp;the recovery.<\/p>\n<p>This operation complements the IMF Rapid Credit Facility, additional budget support by the AFD (Agence Fran&ccedil;aise de Developpement) and AfDB (African Development Bank), and participation in the G20&rsquo;s Debt Service Suspension Initiative, bringing the total amount of emergency support to US$476 million this year, equivalent to 3.1 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n<p><strong>World Bank Group COVID-19 Response\u202f<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/\">World Bank Group<\/a>, one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries, is taking\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldbank.org\/en\/who-we-are\/news\/coronavirus-covid19\">broad, fast action<\/a>\u202fto help developing countries strengthen their pandemic response. We are\u202fsupporting public health interventions, working to ensure the flow of critical supplies and equipment, and helping the private&nbsp;sector continue to operate and sustain jobs. We will be deploying up to $160 billion in financial support over 15 months to help more than 100 countries protect the poor and vulnerable, support businesses, and bolster economic recovery.\u202f This includes $50 billion of new IDA resources through grants and highly concessional loans.<\/p>\n<p><i>Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The World Bank Group.<\/i><\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-newsroom.com\/\">Source: Africa Newsroom &#8211; APO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download logo The World Bank Board of Directors&nbsp;recently&nbsp;approved&nbsp;a&nbsp;US$75&nbsp;million&nbsp;development policy&nbsp;operation for Madagascar&nbsp;to&nbsp;mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. The&nbsp;Madagascar COVID-19 Response Development Policy Financing&nbsp;will help close&nbsp;a&nbsp;financing gap&nbsp;caused by the COVID-19&nbsp;crisis while supporting&nbsp;key reforms to reinforce the effectiveness and transparency of the&nbsp;government&rsquo;s crisis response and to lay the foundation for sustained and resilient recovery.&nbsp; &ldquo;The economic and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[4585],"class_list":{"0":"post-164593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-apo","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/coronavirus-madagascar-world-bank-provides-75-million-to-mitigate-the-impacts-of-covid-19-and-support-recovery.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}