The World Bank is committed to supporting Bangladesh through uncertainties and challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and increasing impacts of climate change as the country moves forward to achieve its development goals coping with these hurdles.
World Bank Managing Director for Operations Axel van Trotsenburg reaffirmed the World Bank's strong support for Bangladesh as he joined the celebration marking the 50th anniversary of fruitful partnership.
"Bangladesh has made tremendous strides, transforming from one of the world's poorest countries at independence in 1971 to a lower middle-income country in 2015," said van Trotsenburg.
“The World Bank as one of Bangladesh’s first development partners is proud to be part of this journey and we have learned a lot from each other about how development works.”
On Sunday, along with the Finance Minister as well as the World Bank Vice President for South Asia Martin Raiser, he joined the celebration to mark the 50 years of the partnership between Bangladesh and the World Bank.
They inaugurated a photo exhibition depicting the country's remarkable progress over the past five decades and joined a panel discussion. The events provided an opportunity to recognize the country's amazing development achievements and to look forward to realizing the country's vision to become an upper-middle-income country by 2031.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said, "The development of the country started after independence. In 1972 the GDP was only $6.3 billion, today it has increased to $465 billion."
He said, "Currently Bangladesh is the 35th largest economy. Our poverty rate has declined by 20 percent. Per capita income has increased to $2,824. Average life span has increased to 73 years."
The World Bank is helping a lot in the development of Bangladesh, he said.
Highlighting future plans the Finance Minister said the country's next target will be an upper middle income country in 2031.
Bangladesh will be a smart and developed country in 2041, he added.
“Bangladesh, as many other countries in the world, is coping with unprecedented global shocks," said van Trotsenburg.
In the five decades of this remarkable journey, the World Bank remained a steadfast partner of Bangladesh.
In August 1972, Bangladesh became a member of the World Bank Group.
In November 1972, the first World Bank project for Bangladesh, a $50 million Emergency Recovery Credit was approved to help the war-torn country to rebuild the transport and communication, agriculture, and industry sectors with some support to the construction and power sector.
At the same time, the World Bank reactivated four more projects that had been approved before the Liberation War.
Since then, the World Bank has committed about $39 billion in International Development Association (IDA) financing in the form of grants, interest-free loans, and concessional credits to help the country overcome its development challenges. With about $15.3 billion in financing 53 ongoing projects, currently Bangladesh has the largest ongoing IDA program, and the World Bank is Bangladesh's largest development partner.
