Highlights

Mr. Mohamed BENCHAABOUN participates in the virtual meeting between Mr. David MALPASS, President of the World Bank Group and the African Consultative Group (African Caucus)

01/04/2021
Mr. Mohamed BENCHAABOUN participates in the virtual meeting between Mr. David MALPASS, President of the World Bank Group and the African Consultative Group (African Caucus)

In conjunction with the 2021 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the IMF, Mr. Mohamed BENCHAABOUN, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Administration Reform, took part, on Thursday April 1, 2021, in the virtual meeting between Mr. David MALPASS, President of the World Bank Group and the African Consultative Group (African Caucus), attended by finance ministers and central bank governors of the 54 African countries members of the IMF and the World Bank.

Mr. Mohamed BENCHAABOUN, as the 2nd Vice-President of the Caucus Bureau for the year 2021, delivered an intervention on behalf of the African governors about "strengthening the service-delivery in the fields of health, education, water and social protection”.

In his speech, the Minister of Economy, Finance and Administration Reform called on the World Bank, through its expertise, to adopt a holistic approach necessary to scale up inclusive service-delivery in Africa.

In this context, he stressed the importance of broad and sustained support from the Bank to support African countries in the following main priority areas: (i) support to the private sector in the national production of medical equipment; (ii) expansion of social programs by adopting better targeted mechanisms; (iii) supporting connectivity infrastructure and digitization in Africa to enable rapid and efficient delivery of education, health and other public services, including social protection programs; and (iv) development of the institutional capacities of African countries for the implementation of projects related to COVID-19.

Mr. BENCHAABOUN also expressed the wish to strengthen coordination between the WB and United Nations agencies, in particular WHO, other MDBs and bilateral donors, for the acquisition of vaccines against COVID-19, and to ensure greater harmonization and complementarity between the various programs initiated by the international community.

For his part, and while expressing the interest of the World Bank in strengthening its support for the economic and social development efforts of African countries, more particularly in this period of health crisis, the President of the World Bank Group announced the readiness of the institution, in close collaboration with the IMF, to provide support, both technical and financial, to support the efforts of African countries in terms of improving public finance management systems and strengthening budget transparency , debt management and social safety nets.