In a move that signals Suriname’s increasing recognition as a likely important cog in the wheel of the global economy, the World Bank has inducted the South American country as the 175th member of its International Development Association (IDA). Over time, the IDA has been increasingly deployed as a tool with which to fight extreme poverty in some of the world’s poorest countries, complementing the Bank’s original lending arm — the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
Membership of the IDA signals the now exalted status of Suriname as a country on the threshold of taking its place on the platform of petro giants with the responsibility of throwing in their lot to support the world’s lowest income countries. While Suriname’s believed significant oil and gas resources will be seen as adding to the IDA’s pool of resources that can be relied upon to ‘chip in’ to stave off crises in poor countries it should be noted that the Dutch-speaking South American country was itself globally regarded as one of the poorer countries in the hemisphere up to less than a year ago, when the French oil company. Total announced its first confirmed oil find offshore Suriname.
Reportedly widely regarded as one of the more globally effective platforms for combatting poverty in some of the world’s lowest income countries, the IDA is believed to be supporting poverty-alleviating measures in more than seventy (70) countries in South Asia, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, and Middle East & North Africa.
Suriname becomes the 175th member of the World Bank’s International Development Association
