BD-WB 50-year dev partnership celebration today

Staff Reporter :
The government of Bangladesh and the World Bank are going to celebrate Bangladesh’s 50 years of relationship with the WB as development partner today.
As part of the programme, the Managing Director of the WB Axel van Trotsenburg has already arrived in Dhaka to join the golden-jubilee celebration and expected that Bangladesh may request more assistance to the World Bank, the world’s largest lender.
On this occasion, a programme has been organised at the city’s Bangabandhu International Conference Centre today at 3:00pm.
According to the World Bank Dhaka office, Von Trotsenberg will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, Planning Minister MA Mannan and senior government officials, civil society representatives and development partners.
Apart from this, he will visit various WB funded projects in Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar during his three-day official visit to Bangladesh. He will be accompanied by Martin Reiser, Vice-President of the World Bank for South Asia during his visit.
However, Bangladesh’s Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal and the WB Managing Director will take part in the ’50 years of WB-Bangladesh partnership’ celebration programme.
Ministry of Finance and World Bank jointly organised this celebration. Besides, Minister for Planning MA Mannan, Alternate Executive Director of World Bank Ahmad Kaykaus, former President of Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) Nihad Kabir, research organisation Policy Research Institute (PRI) Ahsan H Mansoor and Junaid Kamal Ahmad, Vice-President of Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), a World Bank Group institution, will present at the event.
Later, a multimedia photo exhibition ‘A Journey Together’ will be inaugurated at the carnival hall of the convention centre.
The World Bank is the largest multilateral development partner of Bangladesh as it has provided and committed nearly $39 billion worth of assistance to bankroll Bangladesh’s development recipe in last 50 years till FY 2022, according to WB Dhaka office.
The World Bank confirmed US $2.16 billion worth of loans and grants for the country in the last financial year (FY) 2021-22.
“As Bangladesh’s economy is growing well and the WB is one of the key development partners of the country, the visiting WB MD will try to observe some development works physically,” says one ERD official.
According to sources, Von Trotsenberg will visit Bangabandhu memorial museum, a higher-secondary school in old Dhaka, the national data center of the ICT Division, Rohingya camps and some other projects in Cox’s Bazar.
The World Bank top executive will also visit a readymade garment factory nearby Dhaka for watching the country’s industrial development physically, the source added.
Von Trotsenburg is scheduled to meet the Prime Minister on Monday.
It is expected that Bangladesh’s Finance Minister will urge the WB MD to extend the Bank’s support to Bangladesh as the country is struggling with economic shocks amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
More budgetary support is part of the assistance to be sought, in order to meet the gaps in allocations.
Meanwhile, the 50 years of WB-BD partnership celebrations will be preceded by a panel discussion with Planning Minister MA Mannan, MIGA Vice-President, Alternative Executive Director of the WB Dr Ahmed Kaikaus and economists from local think-tanks taking part.
He will leave Dhaka on the night of January 24 at the end of this three-day visit to see the development of Bangladesh with his own eyes and visit the development activities on the ground.