WB to activate climate change fund soon

The World Bank (WB) will do its best to immediately operationalise the multi-donor trust fund for climate change and mobilise resources for the fund, including those from the bank's newly established climate investment funds.
The assurance came when Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, now in Washington, DC to participate in the annual meetings of World Bank and IMF, sought such assistance during a meeting on Sunday with World Bank Managing Director Ms Ngozi N Okonjo-Iweala and senior World Bank officials of the Sustainable Development Network, according to a message received here yesterday.
During the meeting, the World Bank managing director disclosed that a special mission would be fielded within a few weeks to finalise the framework of the multi-donor trust fund in association with the government and other donors and to develop a pipeline of projects for the next year.
Okonjo-Iweala congratulated the government on very efficient management of Bangladesh economy in the face of global challenges like oil and food price spikes and devastating natural disasters at home.
The performance of the Bangladesh economy, she said, has been better than many developing countries.
She also appreciated the government's initiative to finalise its Climate Change Action Plan and for holding a very high level conference in London in collaboration with DFID to mobilise support for the plan.
The World Bank managing director mentioned that Bangladesh is the first country to launch such an initiative.
She also inquired about the likely impact of ongoing financial market turmoil on the Bangladesh economy.
The finance adviser sought World Bank support to immediately operationalise the multi-donor trust fund for the country owned climate change action plan and to utilise effectively the bank's convening power to mobilise adequate foreign assistance in the form of grant for implementation of the action plan.
He also requested the bank to provide grant assistance from the climate investment funds, established recently by the World Bank Group.