by Marie Kauna – EMTV Online, Port Moresby
Poverty reduction is one of the primary goals the Asian Development Banks aims for Asia and Pacific Regions.
And achieving this aim, the multilateral financial institution has been working along with its member countries, supporting and providing loans, technical assistance and grants to help these nations achieve this aim while sustain their economies.
Recently, the government of Samoa has signed up a policy based grant worth $5 million with the Asian Development Bank for its Fiscal Resilience Improvement Program.
With climate changes and its impacts affecting many Pacific Nations, these grant signed will help the government carry out sustainable operations to achieve a sustainable economy and see development impacts that will sustain the lives of the nation. The $5 million will be invested into the four primary areas of focus. This includes;
- Reduction of fiscal drain through state-owned enterprise reforms,
- Improvement of procurement systems,
- Improvement of debt management, and
- Promotion of resilience to climate change.
Given the proposed areas of focus, the improvement program is projected will run from 2016 to 2018.
With this funding assistance and the previous policy, the government after completion of the fiscal improvement program, hopes to see improvements in its fiscal position via its policy ad public enterprise reforms, reduction in its vulnerabilities and a boost in its economy and climatic shocks.
The signing of the grant was witnessed in a ceremony at the Asian Development Bank headquarters by Bhimantara Widyajala, the Executive Director of ADB’s Board of Directors and representing the Government of Samoa, and Xianbin Yao, Director General of ADB’s Pacific Department.
Source: Asian Development Bank
Image Source: Asian Development Bank Website
