The World Bank (WB) has approved $250 million in loan for helping Bangladesh to create more and better jobs, laying the groundwork to accelerate the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is also supporting the country to protect more than five million jobs as part of the government's response to the Covid-19 crisis, a WB press release said on Saturday.
Mercy Tembon, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh and Bhutan said, “Job creation remains central issue to Bangladesh’s development objectives. While Bangladesh has had strong economic growth in recent years, the pace of job creation has slowed, especially in the manufacturing sector.”
The COVID-19 pandemic increased the challenges, and the poor and women were the hardest hit, she said adding that, this financing will help Bangladesh create more and better jobs and expand support for both formal and informal workers affected by COVID-19 crisis.
Although income and job losses due to the pandemic impacted people from all walks of life, women are the most at the risk of exiting the job market, said Aline Coudouel, World Bank Lead Economist and Task Team Leader for the Project.
“This series of programs promoted quality daycare for children in a bid to bring more women to the job market and supported actions to create a more inclusive labour market, for women, youths, and migrants,” Aline added.
The Third Programmatic Jobs Development Policy Credit—the last in a series of three credits— is supporting the government of Bangladesh to develop a stronger policy and institutional framework to modernize the trade and investment regime, improve social protection for workers, and help the youths, women and vulnerable population access quality jobs.
This financing will support the government in its efforts to protect the earnings of workers affected by the COVID-19 crisis and enable firms to continue paying their workers’ wages.
It will also support informal micro-entrepreneurs in recovering from the shock by extending micro-finance facilities.
Overall, it will support government programs to protect over 5 million jobs as part of the government’s near-term response to the crisis, while laying the groundwork to accelerate recovery and build resilience.
This program will also help streamline business and investment services, reducing the cost of starting a business. Further, it supports reforms to align the skills development sector with labor-market demands.
With this program, the total World Bank’s financing to the Programmatic Jobs Development Policy Credit series stands at $750 million. The credit is from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), which provides concessional financing, has a 30-year term, including a five-year grace period.
