The Asian Development Bank will hold a meeting with the Economic Relations Division on April 15 to review the projects financed by the lender in Bangladesh.
The meeting will be held at the Planning Division.
‘Regular review meeting or interactions between the government and the development partners regarding ongoing development programmes give us excellent ideas about the future action plan of the government,’ ERD secretary
Md Abul Kalam Azad told New Age.
ADB’s review is aimed at delivering faster development results and benefits to the people of the country by identifying bottlenecks in project implementation and constraints to achieving the objectives of the development works.
The review meeting will focus on reducing start-up delays, early preparation and approval of development project proposal, and strict adherence to project readiness during processing of the ADB-assisted projects in Bangladesh.
The financial assistance of ADB currently amounts to around $1 billion a year in Bangladesh.
On the other hand, its cumulative lending to Bangladesh amounts to $13.26 billion in 220 loans, while the technical assistance grants for 413 TA projects stood at $220.66 million until November 2012.
ADB portfolio for Bangladesh currently includes 60 loans amounting to $5.21 billion and 43 TAs amounting to $29.30 million, ERD sources said.
The ADB said, ‘More harmonised sector and project assistance approaches will be encouraged in line with the Bangladesh Joint Cooperation Strategy, 2010–2015.’
The total public sector lending programme comprising $2.4 billion in financial support from the Asian Development
Fund and $2.1 billion from its ordinary capital resources is proposed for 2011-2015 in its country partnership strategy for Bangladesh.
-With New Age input
