Minister stresses importance of balancing immediate-term assistance, long-term dev’t interventions

Addis Ababa, October 12, 2022 (FBC) – Ethiopia’s Minister of Finance, Ahmed Shide, stated that balancing the immediate-term emergency assistance with the longer-term development interventions is critical.

During the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings, Finance Minister, Ahmed Shide, joined by Sileshi Bekele, Ambassador of Ethiopia to the USA, met with the WB Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa, Mrs. Victoria Kwakwa and the WB Country Director for Ethiopia, Mr. Ousmane Dione.

The meeting focused on the country program as well as the government’s priorities and the Bank’s support sought to address current development challenges.

Ahmed Shide, during the discussion, underlined that while humanitarian assistance is undoubtedly needed to address the short-term needs of saving lives, broader and longer-term development assistance is critical in tackling the root causes of the challenges Ethiopia faces while ensuring to sustain the hard-earned development gains of recent years.

The Finance Minister stressed the need to unlock the full potential of the productive sectors with highest prospective to support inclusive job creation and sustained growth, supporting social cohesion and resilience, including conflict recovery and reconstruction.

The Minister thanked the World Bank for its commitment and support to respond to the multiple challenges and compounding shocks that Ethiopia faced over the last few years.

Ahmed also highlighted the country’s development priorities, such as tackling the urgent economic challenges and ensuring macro-fiscal stability to address the tremendous economic hardships that Ethiopians are facing, in particular the poor.

Tackling disaster and climate risks, equitable distribution of resources, inclusive and participatory approaches, as well as addressing drivers of fragility such as poverty, food insecurity, climate disasters are also focus areas that requires a coordinated measure, he underscored.

Strengthening human capital, focusing on access to, and quality education, improvements in health, and delivery of other basic services also have paramount importance, the Minister added.

The Vice President Victoria Kwakwa commended Ethiopia’s resilience in dealing with the multiple challenges.

She reassured the Bank’s commitment to use all financing instruments and analytical services to help Ethiopia implement the new phase of transformative reforms as well as support its long-term development needs to mitigate the reversal of achievements on income growth and poverty reduction of the last decades.