Washington: The World Bank announced an additional funding of around $200 million to Ukraine on Monday, and reprogrammed financing to bolster to the country’s social services for vulnerable people, on top of $723 million approved last week. The financing comes as a part of a $3 billion package of support previously announced by the World Bank, which it is preparing for Ukraine over the coming months.
World Bank President David Malpass informed at a virtual event hosted by the Washington Post that the bank hoped to finalize the $3 billion package of support within six to eight weeks to help Ukraine meet its needs. ‘The magnitudes are astronomical. Ukraine has been hit by the economic slowdown itself, the crops that are in the fields – difficult to harvest them’, Malpass said, adding that the Russian forces were trying to cut off Ukrainian farmers from both food and cash.
‘It’s a harsh and horrifying effort that’s going on almost day by day’, he said, and noted that the rebuilding effort would involve highways, bridges and other major infrastructure. He further pointed out that will amount to ‘tens of billions of dollars’. ‘To help Ukraine now, the bank was bringing forward as much cash as we can’, Malpass said, adding that it would also begin building a pipeline of projects to help Ukrainians, some of whom were now living in Poland and elsewhere, as part of the $3 billion package.
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The World Bank further said that the combined total of support already approved for Ukraine stood at around $925 million. It revealed that Austria had provided 10 million euros ($11 million) for a multi-donor trust fund set up by the World Bank, to facilitate channeling grant resources from donors to Ukraine. That brought the total amount in the fund to $145 million, the bank said.
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