DUSHANBE, June 24, 2011, Asia-Plus — The Government of Tajikistan an the World Bank have signed an agreement on financing the Fifth Programmatic Development Policy Grant (PDPG) Program for Tajikistan.
The document was inked here yesterday by Minister of Finance Safarali Najmiddinov and the World Bank Regional director or Central Asia Motoo Konishi.
Tajik Minister noted that the World Bank provided 10 million U.S. dollars as direct budget support to Tajikistan.
Mr. Konishi noted that that policy grant to Tajikistan aimed to support the Government of Tajikistan”s efforts to mitigate the impact of the global crisis and to pave the way for post-crisis recovery and sustained growth and poverty reduction.
The Fifth Programmatic Development Policy Grant Program (PDPG) is the second in a programmatic series of three operations for Tajikistan. PDPG 4-6 series is central to the World Bank”s engagement in Tajikistan, as envisaged in the FY10-13 Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) discussed by the Board in May 2010. It supports the government”s two pronged strategy to mitigate the impact of the global crisis and to pave the way for post-crisis recovery and sustained growth and poverty reduction. PDPG 4-6 build on the PDPG1-3 series completed in 2009. Under PDPG1-3, the government pursued a program of reforms aimed at increasing the competitiveness of the private sector, at strengthening public sector management, and at improving the delivery of services. Despite setbacks and delays, the earlier reform program resulted in improvements in a number of areas. Details of the reform program and its outcomes are presented in the implementation completion report for the previous series. The PDPG5 supports actions in all three areas aimed at improving basic social services, private sector climate, and government effectiveness. To protect basic services, government has continued improving targeting and efficiency of social spending, specifically it has adopted a health sector master plan, issued resolutions for implementation of per capita financing in general education, and introduced pilot schemes for better targeting of social assistance in two rayon”s. To improve the environment for private sector, the government has submitted a law codifying reduction in coverage of permits and procedures to restrict introduction of new permits, to continue issuing land-use certificates to farmers, and to take further actions to strengthen the financial sector. To enhance government effectiveness, Barqi Tojik (state-owned utility responsible for generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in Tajikistan) and Tajiktransgaz (natural-gas distributor in Tajikistan) have made progress in implementation of their financial management improvement plans and in encouraging more efficient use of power.
