WB to give $570m to improve health, public procurement

Economic Correspondent: The World Bank (WB) approved a credit to provide a total of US$ 570 million to Bangladesh for two projects to improve health sector and strengthen the country's public procurement. The amount stands at TK 4,600 crore.

The approval was given at the organisation's board meeting held in Washington on Friday.

The WB's Dhaka office confirmed the news on Saturday.

These two projects will help further progress towards better health outcomes and optimal use of public resources through an effective public procurement and monitoring system, according to a WB press release.

"The World Bank and the government have been working together for years to improve the health sector and public procurement performance," said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

The US$ 515 million Health Sector Support Project will strengthen the country's health system and improve quality and coverage of essential service delivery, with a focus on Sylhet and Chittagong divisions, where key health indicators are below the national average.

It sets a target to increase the number of mothers receiving quality delivery care in public health facilities to at least 146,000 mothers annually in Sylhet and Chittagong divisions. It will also provide basic immunization to nearly 5 million children.

In another project named Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project, the World Bank is providing US$ 55 million.

The project will help Bangladesh improve public procurement performance, including its capacity to monitor implementation of development projects and programmes using digital technology.

Bangladesh spends over US$ 7 billion yearly on public procurement, which constitutes about 70 percent of the annual development programme.

risingbd/Dhaka/July 29, 2017/Hasan/Amirul