World Bank Group President David Malpass declares, that up to 60 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty – that erases all the progress made in poverty alleviation in the past three years.
“Our forecasts indicate deep recession this year as much as minus five percent recession for the global economy. Families have lost loved ones, millions of jobs and livelihoods are lost, the health systems are under enormous strain worldwide.
From the beginning what the World Bank Group’s goal was to provide rapid, flexible responses to developing countries. That’s a way we can protect the poorest, by providing cash and other expandable support on debt, also to maintain the private sector and bolster the economic recovery. What we wanted to do was provide broad support in terms of the countries, the road to recovery from this leads through all countries. And we also wanted wide, broad support in terms of the types of financial support. With that includes the direct support from the health crisis and also working capital for small businesses, technical assistance to help countries with debt trends guarantee and programs that get digital cash to people so they can survive and later on participate in the recovery by working or maybe by starting a business. So that is the reason for our emphasis on fast and broad support.
Today, we are announcing that the World Bank Group is now financing emergency programs in 100 countries –that’s home to 70% of the world’s population.
This represents a significant milestone in the World Bank Group’s effort to deploy $160 billion dollars over a 15-month period. So this is a milestone in the $160 billion dollar that we have committed to. The programs are tailored to the countries to effectively respond to the health, economic and social shocks that that country are facing. The programs will reinforce healthcare systems; and also help procure vital life-saving medical equipment and supplies. And these programs contain mechanisms that allow other donors to rapidly expand the program. And we invite that. There can be co-financing, there can be additional donors parallel with these programs, so it is important that we note that the programs are expandable. And because of the breadth that means the interested donors and other multilateral banks can reach countries around the world”, David Malpass said.
