Bangladesh yesterday signed a US$200m financing agreement with the International Development Association (IDA) for the Nuton Jibon Livelihood Improvement Project, says a World Bank statement. IDA is the World Bank’s concessional arm that helps the world’s poorest countries.
The project aims to benefit approximately five million rural poor by providing livelihood support and enabling access to market through business partnerships.
The agreement was signed by Additional Secretary of Economic Relations Division Kazi Shofiqul Azam and Acting Country Head of WB Bangladesh Christine Kimes on behalf of their respective organisations at the ERD.
The credit from IDA has a 38-year term, including a 6-year grace period, and a service charge of 0.75%.
The project will mobilise the poor and extreme poor people, who often remain left out from micro credit schemes, by building and strengthening community institutions including Nuton Jibon Community Societies.
In addition, the project will raise nutrition awareness, share agricultural knowledge and focus on enhancing youth skills so that they can take advantage of employment opportunities. The project will also fund small scale rural infrastructure.
“While Bangladesh has made tremendous progress in reducing poverty over the past four decades, poverty remains more pervasive in rural areas than in urban areas in Bangladesh,” said Christine Kimes.
“The Nuton Jibon Livelihood Improvement Project will scale-up the activities of predecessor programs to improve economic wellbeing and empower the poorest households, and especially poor women.”
The project builds on earlier projects - Social Investment Program Project (I & II) - which started as a pilot in Jamalpur and Gaibandha districts and has now expanded to 16 of the poorest districts in Bangladesh.
The monitoring and evaluation data showed significant improvement in the income and living standards of project beneficiaries. The project will cover around 2,500 new villages in 12 districts in addition to around 3,200 villages supported under the earlier projects.
“The project is a testament to the government’s continued commitment for accelerating pro-poor growth,” said Shofiqul Azam.
