By Marino Donati | 17 November 2014

The World Bank Group has approved $50m to help the government of Guinea strengthen its management of public funds in response to the Ebola crisis.

The financing, which will support the Emergency Macroeconomic and Fiscal Support Operation, includes a $40m International Development Association credit and a $10m grant from the World Bank Group’s IDA Crisis Response Window, which helps low-income IDA countries respond to exceptionally severe crises.

The operation supports a series of reforms to strengthen public financial management in Guinea.

The first includes an Amended Finance Law that requires the government to create a new budget that takes into account the new Ebola expenditures. The second reform will ensure the government adopts a formalised Ebola response plan, while the third will focus on transparency of Ebola spending by making all income and expenditure documents publicly available.

Ali Zafar, the World Bank’s task team leader for the project, said that the government’s financial position was likely to deteriorate as the cost of combating the epidemic increased.

‘The bank will mitigate these risks by helping finance the fiscal gap,’ he said. 

‘The emergency operation supports policy actions that protect the health of poor, vulnerable Ebola-affected populations. It will address critical obstacles to growth, poverty reduction, and economic resilience by targeting a select set of priority reforms across areas including Ebola response and public finance.’

The World Bank Group is mobilising nearly $1bn in financing for the countries hardest hit by the Ebola crisis.