Key Points
- World Bank Managing Director Anna Bjerde reaffirmed the $20 billion commitment to Pakistan’s ten-year development programme.
- Emphasis on energy, education, health, climate resilience, debt-for-development swaps, fiscal reforms, and infrastructure.
- Focus on performance tracking, implementation mechanisms, and coordination with federal and provincial governments for tangible results.
ISLAMABAD: The World Bank Group has reaffirmed its $20 billion support for Pakistan’s ten-year Country Partnership Framework, highlighting a focused approach to energy, education, health, climate resilience, fiscal reforms, and infrastructure development.
The announcement follows a high-level engagement between Pakistan’s Finance Minister, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb, and World Bank Managing Director Anna Bjerde during the Annual AlUla Conference for Emerging Market Economies in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.
The World Bank emphasises the importance of sustained engagement, clear performance tracking, and effective implementation to ensure that development commitments translate into measurable outcomes. The Bank underscored support for Pakistan’s reform and development agenda under the Country Partnership Framework (CPF).
Finance Minister Aurangzeb assured full cooperation from federal ministries and highlighted the role of provincial governments in ensuring the timely execution and delivery of results across priority sectors.
The AlUla Conference, launched in 2025, brings together finance ministers, central bank governors, senior policymakers, leaders of international financial institutions, and experts to address key economic challenges and opportunities in emerging market economies.
AlUla itself is a historic city in northwest Saudi Arabia, renowned for its archaeological sites and heritage, providing a setting for high-level economic and policy discussions.
The World Bank’s massive development plan, the Pakistan Country Partnership Framework, spans over 10 years, starting with the current financial year 2025-2026. The Framework is backed by an aggregate amount of $20 million, with an average of $2 billion every year of the decade-long plan. At the same time, another $20 billion would come to Pakistan through its private sector, or public-private partnership programmes under the same Framework, from the International Finance Corporation, the commercial lending arm of the World Bank.
