The World Bank announced recently that it was ready to resume lending to Kenya. The bank's president, James Wolfensohn, said they were ready and anxious to resume lending to the country following the Government's commitment to implement sound political and economic policies. He said the bank was currently preparing a full country assistance strategy paper for Kenya in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund.

According to Wolfensohn, the strategy paper would detail their commitment and expectations on various sectors including judicial and financial, HIV/Aids and the privatization program.

Addressing a joint news conference with President Kibaki at State House Nairobi, Wolfensohn said the reasons for the stoppage of their lending programs four years ago were known, but the bank was now coming back with a "different perception." He explained that the bank decided to pull out its support to Kenya because of frustrations that most of their demands were not being met. Furthermore, he said the bank has been encouraged by the commitment of the new administration to fulfill their campaign pledges. Wolfensohn particularly noted the commitment to make Kenya competitive, improve governance, provide free education and fight the HIV/Aids scourge.

President Kibaki, in a brief speech, said his government was committed to fulfilling all its election pledges.

Wolfensohn said the intention of the donor community was to ensure that Kenya succeeds not just within itself, but throughout the East African region and also be able to demonstrate that the will of the people can change the direction of the government. He said the bank was willing and looking forward to assist the Government achieve its targeted seven per cent annual growth.

The bank is the largest development partner to Kenya. Since independence, it has made available over US$ 4 billion to support projects and programs identified as priority by the Government. Between 1990 and 2002, the bank disbursed over US$ 1.8 billion to Kenya. The largest commitments were for agriculture, economic policy, education, electrical power and energy, finance, health, nutrition and population, public sector management, transportation and water and sanitation. Commitments for the 13 ongoing projects as of June 30 this year amounted to US$ 780 million. Already, US$ 360 million has been spent. The bank is also at the forefront of the global fight against HIV/Aids pandemic. It is implementing two projects amounting to US$ 50 million each in health and HIV/Aids in Kenya.