Above: the World Bank’s headquarters

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The World Bank’s Board of Directors has approved a $20 million grant from the International Development Association targeting public sector efficiency in Haiti.

The funding aims to increase “efficiency and transparency in the use of public resources,” the Bank said in a release.

“When citizens know how the government spends public funds and see their lives improving as a consequence, when entrepreneurs see that public contracts are
awarded on a transparent basis, trust in Government increases and so do investments in key economic sectors,” said Alexandre V Abrantes, the World
Bank s Special Envoy to Haiti.

Among the funding’s goals include improving the tracking system of public expenditure, reinforcing the institutional framework of public procurement and strengthening governance in the electricity sector.

The latter will be achieved by monitoring independent power producers’ production, the Bank said, along with paying only for metered generation.

The World Bank said the new funding reflected “the government’s shift in focus from emergency response towards building sound institutions and public spending controls for sustained economic reconstruction.”