World Bank approves funding
THE World Bank Board of Directors has approved additional financing to support the Girls Education and Women’s Empowerment (GEWEL) Project in Zambia meant to empower women and girls.
This financing includes a US$142 million credit from the International Development Association (IDA) and US$35 million in co-financing grants from the UK Department for International Development and the Swedish International Development Association.
These are jointly funding the programme under a Bank-administered multi-donor trust fund.
This support augments the existing US$65 million GEWEL Project which was approved in 2015.
Government and the World Bank have therefore signed a credit agreement for additional financing to support the GEWEL Project.
Dr Kpundeh
The additional finance will support Government’s goal to increase access to livelihood support for women and to boost access to secondary education for disadvantaged adolescent girls in extremely poor households in selected districts
World Bank Country Manager for Zambia, Sahr Kpundeh, said the group was hopeful that a better human capital outcomes would be attained through educating adolescent girls with the additional support.
Dr Kpundeh was also hopeful that the support would empower women and support the poorest households with longer-term investments, as well as enhancing Government’s capacity to manage such interventions.
World Bank Task Team leader of the project, Emma Hobson, said the project was mostly implemented in rural areas where education levels were low and the prevalence rates of gender-based violence (GBV) were high.
“Considering that gender-based violence (GBV) is a major concern in Zambia, under the Additional Financing a more concerted approach to prevent, mitigate, and respond to GBV risks will be introduced, with complimentary interventions within the Bank’s health and education projects,” she said.
The GEWEL Project has supported more than 28,000 girls from poor households by covering their secondary school costs and 75,000 poor women in Zambia with livelihood packages, including, life and business skills training, mentorship, and support to form savings groups.
Recognising the dire needs of these girls and women, the GEWEL Project also supports regular and predictable cash transfers to 245,000 extreme poor and vulnerable beneficiaries through the government’s Social Cash Transfer (SCT) Program.
Such cash transfers have improved basic consumption, resilience and investments in productive activities in Zambia and are crucial to protect the basic needs and human capital of the poor, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is negatively impacting the country’s extreme poor and vulnerable.