Bangladesh seeks $40 mln loan from World Bank

DHAKA, Dec 7 - Bangladesh has requested a $40 million loan from the World Bank to improve the efficiency and skill of workers and reduce poverty through employment generation, the bank said on Sunday.

Bangladesh has made commendable progress towards sustaining a growth rate in excess of 6 percent over recent years, despite a series of natural disasters and external shocks, it said.

"Skills development plays an important role for growth and poverty reduction through employment generation," the bank said in a statement.

Bangladesh's interim government is now preparing a five-year project to develop an efficient and demand-driven technical and vocational training delivery system to improve employment outcomes.

"The project, scheduled to begin in the middle of next year, aims to support training in select sectors, through a limited number of institutions chosen in a competitive manner," an official of the World Bank in Dhaka told Reuters on Sunday.

The project would work to strengthen public-private partnerships for effective delivery of training services through institutional autonomy and partnership with industry, the official said.

The trade and commercial associations, employers associations, and industry will determine the demand for different types of training programme to ensure they lead to employment.

It will also focus on improving the institutional capacity of key entities such as the department of technical education and Bangladesh Technical Education Board.

The project will be implemented in close collaboration with multiple stakeholders to ensure it is complementary to the efforts of other development partners like the European Commission, Asian Development Bank and International Labour Organisation. ($1= 68.88 taka)