World Bank reviews support to women projects

VICE-PRESIDENT Inonge Wina has expressed happiness with the World Bank’s support to Zambia in various key sectors of the economy.

Ms Wina said this when the World Bank Team paid a courtesy call on her in Lusaka yesterday.

The World Bank team is in Zambia to hold technical meetings with Government over possible additional financing for the Girls Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods’ Support (GEWEL) Project after the current agreement comes to an end in September, 2020.

Under the current GEWEL agreement worth US$65 million, the project was on track to achieve its Project Development Objectives (PDO) and has been rated as satisfactory for the last year.

This is contained in a statement issued by Permanent Secretary for administration in the Vice President’s Office Stephen Mwansa.

Component one, of the Project is Support to Women’s Livelihoods (SWL) whose target is to support 75,000 women with training, a productive grant, savings and mentoring.

As of now 12,748 beneficiaries have received full SWL package and 21,375 beneficiaries await the grant.

An additional 45,000 women will be selected from Social Cash Transfer (SCT) households in mid-2019.

Component two, of the project is Keeping Girls in School (KGS) whose target is to pay school fees for 14,000 vulnerable girls from SCT households.

To date school fees have been paid for 16,239 female secondary school students in 16 districts across 10 provinces. KGS is expanding to an additional 11 new districts to support 9,000 more girls. A total of 25,239 girls are expected to benefit under the project surpassing the initial project target of 14,000 girls.

Further, investments have been made in payment systems, management information systems, and financial management.

The GEWEL project is contributing towards Government’s aim of substantially scaling up pro- poor spending to combat poverty and inequality as set out in the 7NDP.

The team included Country Manager for Zambia Ina- Marlene Ruthenberg, Task Team Leader for Girls Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihoods’ Support (GEWEL) Project Sarah Coll Black t in the company of Emma Hobson also working on the GEWEL project.