RAYMOND, Maine — Chad has struggled to handle its issues with poverty and maintain a good workforce. The World Bank endorsed a new Country Partnership Framework with Chad. The new Partnership’s engagement note outlines the Bank’s plans to help Chad and its government with its Five-Year Development Plan. Chad’s Country Engagement Note includes help for expanding access to essential services, developing sustainable agriculture practices, increasing government transparency, improving the government’s infrastructure, decreasing poverty and creating a stable workforce.
Issues with Poverty
Chad’s New Country Engagement Note results from its severe poverty issues, with 42% of the population living in poverty in 2018. According to the Annual United Nations Human Development Report, Chad ranks as one of the five poorest nations in the world. Access to essential goods and services, such as food and health care for Chad’s citizenry has become increasingly difficult. Chad’s food prices are on the rise, putting an even greater financial burden on its citizens. In combination with the natural agricultural struggles, nearly 1 million Chadians are food insecure.
Health care is also costly in Chad, especially in its rural areas. The country lacks proper medicine and tools, and the entire country is seeing a shortage of health care workers. Only 22% of Chad’s children under the age of 2 have all the vaccines required for their age. The movement to fully vaccinate children and ensure their health largely came from non-governmental organizations, including, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The water supply in Chad is hard to sustain due to the arid climate and severe desertification. When the nation does have water, it is often polluted. Only recently has 60% of the rural population gained a consistent water supply.
Chad’s government has struggled to handle any of the aforementioned problems that have riddled the country for decades and to control the spiraling situation, the government drafted a Five-Year Plan. After the presentation, the World Bank is granting a temporary intense partnership with Chad’s government to reach some of the nation’s goals. At the bare minimum, the goals are to create political stability, trust between its citizens and the government and reduce the poverty rate that threatens to rise as long as the distrust continues.
Implications of a The Country Engagement Note and Potential Engagement
The Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) is the basis of data per each New Country Partnership Agreement with the World Bank. The SCD presents the assessment of what a country’s next steps must be to ensure the reduction of poverty, the World Bank’s primary goal or other goals the government aims in the process of poverty reduction, to achieve within a specified window.
Chad released its Country Engagement Note (CEN), which is one step away from a Country Partnership Framework. The framework is a partnership with the World Bank for a much longer period of time, whereas the Engagement Note designs the short-term steps a country must take before the World Bank commits to a long partnership. Chad’s CEN outlines its second-ever five-year development plan and its short-term goals for poverty reduction. The CEN will be implemented between 2023 and 2024. Chad’s CEN describes its clear intentions for a transparent government, as Chad has been lacking political transparency in the government’s motives and economic spending for too long.
A transparent government is key to poverty reduction. Countries that are rich in natural resources, like Chad, with its gold deposits, might try to abuse its riches in secret and a government that is held fully accountable through transparency is more likely to deliver essential services. These services are ones Chad severely lacks, such as its proper health care and education systems. Chad’s new country engagement note and agreement with the World Bank ensures the government will stay on track to fight poverty and create a sustainable economy for the nation.
– Clara Mulvihill
Photo: Flickr