Health care, waste water treatment and renewable energy are among the areas identified for initial consideration for funding next year by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB).
According to a release from the Ministry of Finance on Saturday, other priority areas are Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Housing and infrastructure.
The priority areas were broached when the Ministry of Finance hosted a Programming Mission from the IsDB to identify projects to accelerate Guyana’s development.
The IsDB has set aside a US$880m envelope over a four-year period. Access to the funds require the submission of viable projects. On September 19 this year, Guyana signed a historic first loan for US$20m with the IsDB for the power sector.
The release from the Ministry of Finance said that the programming mission which concluded on Friday saw three “intense” days of meetings between a team of officials from the bank by Dr. Sobir Komilov – Regional Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean; and included Saifulla Abid –Senior Country Manager for Guyana IsDB; Hamady Soma Ba – Relationship Manager from the International Islamic Trade Financing Department (ITFC) and Ahmed A Khalid – Regional Head (Asia) of the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (IFC) and representatives from the Public and Private Sectors.
The release said that the mission aimed at developing a pipeline of potential projects for the medium term 2019 – 2021 that would inform the work programme of the IsDB.
The discussions were coordinated by the Ministries of Finance and Business under the guidance of Winston Jordan, Minister of Finance and Governor for Guyana at the IsDB. Discussions, the release said, were held with the Ministries of Public Health, Education, Agriculture, Public Infrastructure, Communities, Social Protection, GO-Invest, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and several commercial banks.
An aide memoir was signed between the government and the IsDB Group with both sides agreeing to continue collaborating on the development of the country.
