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The recent financial support worth US$100 million released by World Bank for Zambia is essential for the stabilisation of the Kwacha.
This will work side by side as the Government continues to apply measures towards macroeconomic stability, according to the Policy Monetary and Research Centre (PMRC) acting Executive Director Sydney Mwamba.
Mwamba said the support came at a time when Zambia’s currency was experiencing depreciation due to the United State (US) dollar demand for the importation of farming inputs.
Read more: World Bank releases additional $100m to support Zambia’s economy
“The recent US$ 100 million support released by the World Bank for Zambia amid substantial delays in debt restructuring will support macroeconomic stability and growth.
“It will also support competitive programmes and comes at a time when Zambia’s currency is experiencing depreciation due to dollar demand for the importation of farming inputs,” Mwamba said in the end of 2022 message.
He pointed out that in terms of international cooperation, Zambia had maintained good relationships at multilateral and bilateral levels.
Mwamba cited the relationship Zambia had with the World Bank as a long-time-standing relationship dating back to 1955.
He stated that the Bank had partnered with Zambia to support 25 development projects, with a value of US$3.5 billion across various sectors- energy, transport, agriculture, health, education and cross-cutting projects in gender, climate change, devolution and social protection.
“The World Bank made US$740 million in concessional disbursements in 2022 and these are providing strong support to reduce the country’s fiscal deficit and implement difficult but sound reforms.
“It is important to note that during the financial year June 2022 to June 2023, the World Bank approved US$300 million for farm development; US$200 million for devolution and social protection and US$175 million for Budget Support,” Mwamba said.
Meanwhile, Mwamba expressed PMRC’s commitment to supporting Government institutions and development partners in developing evidence-based policy recommendations for the effective delivery of the national development agenda.
PMRC committed itself to providing quality policy analysis to complement the Government’s efforts in the pursuit of economic transformation.
“In this regard, we shall continue to partner with like-minded institutions to promote and encourage dialogue and debate on social and economic policy issues critical to national development.
“The PMRC work plan for 2023 therefore, has been developed around key national issues requiring increased public understanding and participation. We are thankful to all key stakeholders that we have worked with this year and are hopeful that we will pursue more undertakings of mutual benefit in 2023,” Mwamba stated.
On the year 2022, PMRC stated that it had remarkable as it marked ten years of PMRC’s existence as a public policy think tank playing a key role in promoting public understanding through research and education.
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