By LaminKujabi
World Bank’s Country Director, Mr. Nathan Belete officially bade farewell to The Gambia on Wednesday, November 9th when he visited President Adama Barrow, at State House
Mr Belete has come to the end of his term of duty in The Gambia and he has been speaking to the press about how feels about Gambia and it development and what the World Bank has done and wants to do for the country.
He expressed gratitude to the President for the opportunity to work in The Gambia. He said the World Bank has significantly increased its engagement in the country as a result of very strong partnership between the government and the Bank, resulting in “major achievements in energy transformation, energy access, health, agriculture and social protection”.
“We will be submitting additional supplementary budget support of 20 million US Dollars which will be concluded next month, as well as additional 45 million US Dollars to support coastal resilience programmes,’’ he announced.
Mr Belete added that in 2024, they are expected to increase their financial support to another 100 million US Dollars for human capital, education, technical vocational training (TVT) as well as health support services and re-enforcing governance measures with 50 million US Dollars engagement to address the issue of governance in the country.
He The Director drew media’s attention to the fact that in the past three years, World Bank portfolio in the country has reached a record level of twelve projects with about 150 million US Dollars that has been committed.
“We have also increased our presence in The Gambia. My office and WB Resident Representative’s office has almost 12 staff, both international and national,’’ he said.
He assured that the partnership between the Gambia Government and World Bank will further expand in the coming months thanks to the successful negotiation by Honorable Minister of Finance when he visited Washington in October this year.
