PM launches World Bank’s $20 billion Country Partnership Framework for Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday launched the World Bank’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for Pakistan, a plan to focus $20 billion in loans to the cash-strapped nation over the coming decade on development issues like the impact of climate change and boosting private-sector growth.
Pakistan in 2023 nearly defaulted on the payment of foreign debts when the International Monetary Fund rescued it by agreeing to a $3 billion bailout to Pakistan. Last year, Islamabad secured a new $7 billion loan deal from the IMF. Since then, the country’s economy has started improving with weekly inflation coming down from 27 percent in 2023 to 1.8 percent earlier this month. Sharif has vowed to reduce dependence on foreign loans in the coming years.
The World Bank’s lending for Pakistan will start in 2026 and focus on six outcomes: improving education quality, tackling child stunting, boosting climate resilience, enhancing energy efficiency, fostering inclusive development and increasing private investment.
“Together, this partnership fosters a unified and focused vision for your county around six outcomes with clear, tangible and ambitious 10-year targets,” Martin Raiser, the World Bank vice president for South Asia, said in an address at the launch ceremony of the loan program. 

 “We hope that the CPF will serve as an anchor for this engagement to keep us on the right track. Partnerships will equally be critical. More resources will be needed to have the impact at the scale that we wish to achieve and this will require close collaboration with all the development partners.”
Speaking at the ceremony, PM Sharif said the CPF was a “vision to transform Pakistan’s economy, building climate resilient projects, alleviating poverty and unemployment and promoting digitization, agriculture and IT led initiatives.”
Separately, Raiser met Ahad Cheema, Pakistani minister for economic affairs, to discuss in detail the framework’s next steps and its implementation. 
“The two leaders also discussed the need to address key challenges in project implementation, such as land acquisition, project start-up delays, and ensuring compliance with social safeguards,” Cheema’s office said in a statement.
“Cheema stressed that effective coordination between the World Bank and other development partners, as well as streamlined approval processes, would be essential to overcoming these hurdles.”
Cheema also called on the World Bank to enhance Pakistan’s allocation of concessional resources, especially in support of climate change mitigation and foreign debt management.