The World Bank’s Board approved on Friday a new EUR 92.3 million (US$100 million equivalent) loan for the Armenia Green, Resilient and Inclusive Development Policy Operation (DPO), the bank said in a press release.
The operation supports the 2021-26 Program of the Government of the Republic of Armenia and is aimed at promoting green, resilient, and inclusive development by: (i) improving the regulatory framework for environmental management to help Armenia mitigate and adapt to the pressures of climate change; (ii) enhancing equity and promoting human capital development; and (iii) supporting the anti-corruption framework and justice sector efficiency.
“This operation is a testament to the government’s reform commitment to making growth more inclusive and sustainable,” said Carolin Geginat, World Bank Country Manager for Armenia. “The operation supports critical reforms to support Armenia’s human capital, including the adoption of the education strategy and improving the targeting of social assistance. For the first time, a World Bank budget support operation in Armenia also includes reforms to support the country in its efforts to mitigate and adapt to the increasing pressures of climate change.”
Key reforms supported under this operation are aligned with the World Bank’s Country Partnership Framework for 2019–23. They include the reform of the public investment management framework to ensure systematic climate screening of public investments; revision of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Atmospheric Air Protection (AAP) laws; deployment of a new system for improved targeting of social assistance; modernization of the education curriculum, including for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and green education and revised laws on mediation and arbitration to enable greater efficiency in the functioning of the justice system.
This EUR 92.3 million (US$100 million equivalent) loan is an IBRD flexible loan with variable spread, with a 5-year grace period and a total repayment term of 19 years. This is the first operation in a programmatic series and is supported by parallel financing of EUR 50 million ($53.7 million) provided by the OPEC Fund for International Development, a multilateral development finance institution headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
Since joining the World Bank in 1992, commitments to Armenia have totaled around $2.53 billion.
