HARARE, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- World Bank teams are currently visiting Zimbabwe to offer technical assistance towards the country's economic recovery program.
The mission, running from Jan. 16-27, is being carried out by three WB teams who will offer technical assistance in areas like improving business climate for the private sector, development of modern public investment planning and poverty monitoring and evaluation.
The WB is administering ZIMREF, a trust fund that has received pledges and financial commitments of 40.4 million U.S. dollars from the European Union, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the World Bank's State and Peace Building Fund since being set up in 2015.
Ending in 2019, the ZIMREF aims to support the strengthening of Zimbabwe's systems for reconstruction and development with a focus on stabilization and reform, reconstruction, development and poverty alleviation.
The WB has restricted its support towards Zimbabwe to trust funds and technical assistance since 2000 when the country started defaulting on loan repayments to the global lender and other multilateral creditors.
Zimbabwe cleared a 15-year debt amounting to 108 million dollars to the IMF last year, and is yet to clear 1.7-billion-dollar arrears to the WB and the African Development Bank.
