São Paulo – The Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund, managed by the World Bank, has received US$ 37.7 million from Canada, the United Kingdom and France, in order to foster good governance, sustainable growth and job opportunities for young people in Arab countries. The announcement was made by the World Bank last Wednesday (2).
The fund was established in October last year during the annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) summit, in Japan. The goal is to allocate funds to Arab countries undergoing transitions, so they can maintain their institutions, implement economic governance policies, foster trade and investment, promote inclusive development, and create jobs. At this time, the countries benefited by the Fund include Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen.
"In a time of momentous and historic change, the scope of the Transition Fund is very flexible and responsive to people’s demands, and can accompany the implementation of reforms over several years if needed,” said the executive secretary of the Fund’s steering committee, Jonathan Walters, in a statement released to the press.
“The Transition Fund provides grants to help governments implement economic and governance reforms that will transform people’s lives. The Fund can work with any public agency involved in reforms, including local government, parliaments, enterprises, ministries, and judicial systems,” he said.
The donor countries have committed to supplying US$ 165 million, out of a target of US$ 250 million. Aside from the contributions already made, countries such as Japan, Kuwait, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia and United States have confirmed future donations.
Palestine
Also this week, Algeria donated US$ 26 million to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). The aid is meant to provide relief from the financial crisis experienced by the Palestinian government due to Israel’s freeze of Palestinian tax money. The information was supplied by the Arab League deputy secretary Ahmed Ben Helli, and was released by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
According to Wafa, Ben Helli said the Arab League secretary general, Nabil El-Araby, sent letters calling on Arab governments to speed up the implementation of the US$ 100 million safety net to help the PNA overcome its financial shortcomings and be able to go on paying its officials.
With the funds, the Arab League hopes to curb the impact of the Israeli tax freeze, announced after Palestine was recognized as a non-member state of the United Nations (UN), on November 29 last year.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
