Global Concessional Financing Facility to finance $248m to support health, sewage projects — Planning Ministry

AMMAN — Financing worth $248.34 million has been agreed upon to finance two health and sewerage projects in Jordan, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury said on Monday. 

The funding agreement was made with the Steering Committee of the Global Concessional Financing Facility to finance one project in the health sector and another sewage project to the west of Irbid, 80km north of Amman. 

The committee meeting, held in Washington, DC, also saw the United Kingdom announce an additional contribution of £60 million and Sweden pledge $10 million, according to a statement from the ministry.

The first project aims to support the Kingdom’s health sector through public budget, at a total cost of $150 million provided by the World Bank and the Islamic Bank for Development, which includes a $34.9 million grant from the financing facility. 

In the second project, the West Irbid Wastewater Project will receive $43.98 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, with $2.5 million contributed from the facility. 

Fakhoury predicted that, over the next five years, Jordan will require concessional financing of $1.5 billion, while also highlighting the effects of hosting Syrian refugee communities on both Jordan and Lebanon, particularly in terms of economic, security, military and humanitarian challenges. 

Jordan was one of the first countries to benefit from the funding of the facility. 

Last year, the Kingdom had the approval for financing three projects — two from the World Bank and one with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development — with a total value of $600 million, of which $78 million is in the  form of grant from the facility, mostly as funding to support the budget, the statement said.

Fakhoury took part in an event organised by the World Bank Group’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, titled ‘‘The Next Revolution: Guidance for Investors for Development Projects’’, in which the President and CEO of the Agency and the First Vice President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development participated.

The minister also participated as a keynote speaker in a roundtable discussion hosted by the New American Foundation, during which he briefed the audience on the repercussions of the Syrian refugee crisis on the Jordanian economy.

He also joined a meeting with IMF officials, which was attended by the Minister of Finance Omar Malhas and the Central Bank of Jordan’s Governor Ziad Fariz.

He noted that the direct cost of hosting the refugees, according to the World Bank and the UN is $2 billion yearly and the indirect is $3.5 billion, adding that Jordan is that largest host of refugees in the world, where 2.8 million refugees are registered at the UN.

Fakhoury, participated as a keynote speaker in a panel on refugees and development, with David Miliband, president and director of the International Relief Committee, and Christina Giorgina, the new chief executive of the World Bank, where they discussed a report prepared jointly by the International Relief Team and the Centre for Global Development on Displacement and Development.

The minister also took part in a panel discussion on ‘‘Responding to refugee crises in middle-income countries and lessons learned from the concessional financing facility’’ with the participation of the high commissioner for refugees, the new World Bank chief executive officer and development ministers from Canada, Sweden, Denmark, Britain, the Netherlands and Lebanon.