World Bank approves $2b funds for Ukraine
The World Bank has approved $US1.49 billion($A2.07 billion) of additional financing for Ukraine to help pay wages for government and social workers, expanding the bank’s total pledged support for Kyiv to more than $US4 billion.
A Ukrainian flag hangs on the railing of a window in an apartment block destroyed as a result of shelling by the Russian troops, Irpin, Kyiv Region. Photo: Ruslan Kaniuka/Ukrinform/ABACAPRESS.COM.
The World Bank said in a statement that the latest round of funding for Ukraine is supported by financing guarantees from Britain, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Latvia.
The project is also being supported by parallel financing from Italy and contributions from a new Multi-Donor Trust Fund.
Ukraine has said it needs at least $US5 billion ($A6.9 billion) per month in the near term to keep its government operating in the face of the invasion by Russia in February and fighting that has shut down vast portions of its economy.
Finance leaders from the Group of Seven industrial democracies last month pledged $US9.5 billion ($A13.2 billion) in new funding, bringing their non-military support to nearly $US20 billion ($A28 billion).
The World Bank has been working with donor countries to use its various financing programs to support health care, education, social services, power and water supplies, and roads.
The core services were “essential to preventing further deterioration in living conditions and poverty in Ukraine beyond the suffering inflicted because of the war,” World Bank Eastern Europe country director Arup Banerji said in a statement.
Such services would also be “the bedrock of any recovery and reconstruction,” Banerji said.
-AAP
