Created in 1946, the World Bank's overall mandate is to promote economic and social progress in developing nations by helping raise productivity so that people may live better and fuller lives. The Bank began its operations in independent Bangladesh in 1972 when it provided the country's first concessional International Development Association (IDA) credit for the construction of shelters in tornado-affected areas.

The Bank's mission in Bangladesh is to accelerate the rate and improve the pattern of growth so as to reduce absolute poverty in a sustainable way, ensuring participation of people at the grassroots level. The Bank's recent study, Bangladesh 2020: A Long-run Perspective Study, reports that to break out of the 4% GDP growth trap, and to achieve rapid and sustainable growth during the next 25 years, the country faces formidable challenges and must overcome constraints in the area of physical and human resources. Only by meeting these challenges can the basic needs of the people in education, housing, health care, jobs and in human rights be achieved by the year 2020.

The Bank thus adopts a two-pronged strategy which promotes labour-intensive growth and human resources development through targeted measures which directly assist the poorest groups which would otherwise be excluded from the development process. To this end the Bank looks at structural impediments to accelerated growth, probes into institutional and sectoral reforms needed for successful implementation of the investment projects, and offers policy advice to the Government. The Bank also finances development projects which support investment or reforms in various economic sectors. The Bank takes the lead in aid coordination.

The Bank provides assistance through the International Development Association (IDA), a concessional lending agency of the World Bank group which provides interest-free credit with a repayment period of over 30 years. IDA is currently the largest among the donors in Bangladesh and in the 1972-73 to 1995-96 period, commitments totalled US$7.5 billion (net of cancellations). The Bank also accesses credit from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), another institution of the World Bank group, which has provided assistance totalling US$82.3 million in the 1972-1997 period.

By the end of 1996 the Bank was promoting poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihoods through 25 major projects with a total commitment of US$1,720 million, of which US$276 million had been disbursed in collaboration with the Government and nine other donors,

What the World Bank Does

Since 1972 the Bank has supported projects in the following areas:

• Poverty alleviation through micro-credit for income-generating enterprises. Under this project the Bank has allocated US$105 million IDA fund to be channelled through the non-profit organisation, the Polli Karma Shahayak Foundation (PKSF), for supporting micro-credit programmes of NGOs working with the poor, especially women;

• Agricultural growth and environmental resource management such as forest resource management;

• Natural resource exploitation and management for natural gas, water resource management, irrigation, and fisheries development;

• Physical infrastructure such as the Jamuna Bridge, and rural roads and markets;

• Operations Evaluation Department conducts Bank-wide evaluation projects in terms of their performance. At the end of each project a completion report is submitted;