Baghdad – IA
The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, confirmed today, Wednesday, that the World Bank plays a positive and supportive role for the Iraqi economy, and its team in Baghdad represents the advisory arm for the government program.
Saleh said to the (INA): “The World Bank Group in Iraq launched its new relationship with our country in accordance with what was stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1483 in May 2003, and it is undertaking the task of mobilizing financial and technical assistance to support Iraq’s efforts to restore confidence in the economy, build its foundations, and mitigate… of its debt burdens in concert with the International Monetary Fund.
He added, “After years of wars and conflicts that affected the country’s infrastructure since the 1980s and Iraq’s severance and isolation from the world and multilateral international organizations, the bank contributed by taking its active role after the year 2003, especially in managing a number of development financing funds for the benefit of our country’s economy.”
He continued, “This was done by managing the funds provided by donor countries to Iraq under the Madrid Donors Conference held in October 2003, or by contributing to supporting the private sector through the role assumed by the International Finance Agency (IFC) as one of the arms of the World Bank Group active with the private sector.” As well as through the Bank’s role in supporting some aspects of development and facilitating ways of stabilizing our economy, including providing soft loans provided by the World Bank to support the national economy on various occasions during the last twenty years, specifically during the dual financial and security crisis to confront the ISIS terrorist gangs and the decline in oil prices after… The year 2014.”
He added, “The World Bank also played a role in improving the governance of economic life and rebuilding the requirements of a more powerful and modern digital and development era for the benefit of our country in many areas, in addition to contributing to rebuilding livelihoods by enabling social welfare programs and providing them with plans and programs that address issues of combating poverty.”
He pointed out, “The World Bank works closely with international partners to support economic reforms, specifically in the financial, banking, and public finance sectors.”
Saleh continued, “The World Bank today is not only a financing institution, but rather a bank that provides knowledge and its tools based on its accumulated experience that has reached nearly eighty years. Since its founding in 1945, Iraq was at the forefront of the founding countries of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, and this is how the bank is viewed.” The International Bank is currently considered an “information and knowledge bank.”
He continued, “The World Bank team working in Iraq serves as the advisory arm for the current government program, and the reform foundations currently adopted in the government of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani, specifically in the field of reform, whether in governance and reform of public sector institutions, market institutions, and government financing systems in accordance with best practices.” International, pointing out that “such cooperation appears in the positive bilateral relations existing between the World Bank Group and the relevant sectoral ministries, such as the Ministries of Finance and Planning, as well as the Ministries of Agriculture and Industry, and relevant market organizations.”