April 3 (SeeNews) - Romania's government has activated 400 million euro ($437 million) of pre-arranged financial support from the World Bank to respond to the COVID–19 pandemic, the international lender said.
The financing covers a range of interventions to strengthen health services, minimise the losses to both the public and private sectors, and to safeguard lives and livelihoods overall, the World Bank said in a press release on Thursday evening.
Romania was able to benefit from a pre-arranged loan which has a Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (CAT-DDO) facility that the government negotiated with the World Bank in June 2018.
The objective of this programme is to strengthen Romania's institutional and legal framework to effectively manage the physical, social and fiscal impacts of health emergencies, natural disasters and climate change. As well as supporting the government with critical policy reforms to build resilience, this facility enables the government to access financing within 48 hours in response to a natural disaster or health emergency, the international lender said.
In parallel, the World Bank Romania country office is working to restructure the existing portfolio, especially in the health sector, to use part of its undisbursed balance to finance crisis-related equipment purchases, as well as in crisis-affected areas beyond the health sector.
The World Bank Group has said it is rolling out a $14 billion fast-track package to strengthen the COVID-19 response in developing countries and shorten the time to recovery.
($=0.9146 euro)