Crisis Shots World Bank Lending To $100bn

The World Bank has committed a record 100 billion dollars in financial support in 18 months to help developing countries recover from the global economic crisis, it was announced on Wednesday.

The Bank stepped up lending in July 2008 at the request of member countries, as demand from developing countries increased in the face of a worsening world recession and sharp drop in global trade.

The bulk of the lending since the onset of the crisis in 2008, about 60.3 billion dollars, was to middle-income countries, which struggled to borrow on global financial markets.

Typical lending for the countries had a averaged about 15 billion dollars a year before the crisis.

Meanwhile, loans and grants through the Bank’s fund for the world’s poorest countries, reached 21.2 billion dollars during the crisis.

The figure is in contrast to about 12 billion dollars a year prior to the crisis.

Kyle Peters, World Bank Director for Country Services, said such demand was natural for countries facing economic stress.

“A lot of countries wanted to make sure that social safety nets were expanded both in terms of the amount of support and the number of people who needed them,” he said.

“As governments saw their revenues shrink, due to the fall in global demand, countries turned to the World Bank for budget support to avoid cuts in spending for social programmes,” he said.