World Bank upbeat on Zim recovery
Sunday, 03 April 2011 13:49
BY KUDZAI CHIMHANGWA
THE World Bank says it is upbeat about Zimbabwe’s economic future after the
inclusive government adopted a strategy to reduce its US$7 billion arrears
to international lenders.
“Zimbabwe has adopted a hybrid strategy to cover its debts and we at the
bank are confident that the Ministry of Finance will pursue this debt
clearance strategy,” the institution’s country manager Nginya Mungai
Lenneiye said last week.
The Zimbabwe Accelerated Debt and Development Strategy (Zadds) combines
traditional debt servicing methods and application of mining resources to
clear the crippling debt.
Lenneiye said the country had witnessed significant recovery in the mining
and agricultural sectors in the past few months.
But he stressed that more had to be done to put the country on a firm
revival path.
“The challenge now is to create the environment for these sectors to grow
the economy with clarifications being made on indigenisation and the land
issue among others,” Lenneiye said.
He said Zadds would go a long way in restoring relations between the World
Bank and Zimbabwe.
Lenneiye said Zimbabwe also stood to reap huge benefits from the new
strategy after implementing appropriate governance reforms and showing
predictability in government policies.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suspended balance of
payments support for Zimbabwe over a decade ago after the country started
defaulting on its arrears.
Meanwhile, the World Bank is finalising the drafting of an African regional
strategy, which lays out its vision of supporting the development process in
the region for the next 10 years, taking into account the diverse political
economies.
The renewed strategy was developed through widespread consultations with
representatives in government, the private sector and civil society.
Speaking at a meeting to deliberate on the strategy’s launch on Thursday,
Lenneiye said it aims to provide a broad scope for the multilateral
institution’s engagement with African countries in order to enhance the
achievement of development goals on a contextual basis.