World Bank pledges $44 million to help Zimbabwe

The World Bank has pledged at least 44 million US dollars over the next five years to help Zimbabwe implement economic policy reforms.

The new trust fund is a successor to the 2008 Analytical Multi-Donor Trust. It's expected to put Zimbabwe on the path to reinstating its borrowing rights with key global lenders.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank stripped Zimbabwe of its borrowing rights over a decade ago, after it defaulted on loan repayments.

A high risk credit rating has made international money expensive for Zimbabwe and ham strung infrastructural development. The World Bank, Zimbabwe's largest creditor, is now taking steps to re-engage with Zimbabwe to help resolve its external debt of over $7 billion.

The introduction of the Zimbabwe Reconstruction Fund hopes to support the implementation of Zimbabwe's economic blueprint, ZimAsset.

World Bank director for Zimbabwe, Kundhavi Kadiresan, says the purpose is to aid the country to expand. "The main purpose is to help us expand activities here and it will go beyond capacity building technical support. For the first time it will include investment projects," he explains.

Six donors including the EU, UK, Germany, Norway, Denmark and Sweden will contribute towards the programme. 15 million US dollars will be made available for 2015.

The funds will give Zimbabwe chance to tackle its bloated civil service which eats over 80 % of the budget.

Zimbabwe Finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa says there will be a focus on parastatal reform. He says the process must be guided by facts as, "anything not guided by facts is a witch-hunt."

Zimbabwe says in May next year, it will begin formal engagement with the World Bank on clearing its debt. A debt that through interest and penalties has grown to over $1 billion.

Currently it is making token repayments to the IMF, World Bank and European Investment bank.