Pakistan on Right Track: World Bank, Reuters UK, 6 February 2010
EXCERPT: "The World Bank has committed up to $1.3 billion (831 million pound) for Pakistan in the 2009/10 fiscal year and violence in the country will not deter it from continuing its projects, a World Bank official said. Out of new loans committed for this fiscal year, $300 million had been disbursed, Yusupha Crookes, World Bank country director for Pakistan, said in an interview... Increased insecurity had not affected bank projects, he said. 'Last fiscal year was the most challenging year that Pakistan has ever encountered up to that point,' Crookes said. 'That year, we basically committed, delivered more assistance to Pakistan than the bank has ever done in its history.' The World Bank made commitments of $1.6 billion in the 2008/09 (July-June) fiscal year. Pakistan has been fighting a Taliban insurgency and in retaliation Taliban have bombed markets, schools and military and police facilities... Allies promised $5.7 billion over two years in April last year but only $300 million has come in. Another $1 billion is expected by the end of the 2009/10 fiscal year... 'The fundamental issue in Pakistan is basically whether or not the state is generating enough revenues to be able to support the kind of social expenditure that it has contracted with its citizens to deliver,' he said."
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Related articles:
Donors agree fund for Pakistan, BBC News, 25 September 2009
Q and A: How will Pakistan's Friends, donors help?, Reuters, 16 April 2009
NGOs urge World Bank to stop funding mega-projects in Pakistan, Bank Information Center, 1 November 2007
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