World Bank approves additional $200M funding for Ukraine

The funding comes on top of $723 million approved last week and is part of a $3 billion package of support that the World Bank is racing to get to Ukraine.

The World Bank on Monday approved nearly $200 million in additional and reprogrammed financing to bolster Ukraine’s support of vulnerable people as Russian forces continued the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

The funding comes on top of $723 million approved last week and is part of a $3 billion package of support that the World Bank is racing to get to Ukraine and its people in coming weeks.

World Bank President David Malpass told a virtual event hosted by the Washington Post that the bank hoped to finalize the $3 billion package within six to eight weeks.

“The magnitudes are astronomical,” he said of Ukraine’s needs, adding that the rebuilding effort would involve highways, bridges and other major infrastructure.

“That amounts to tens of billions of dollars,” he said.

To help Ukraine now, the bank was bringing forward “as much cash as we can,” Malpass said. He said it was also working on specific projects to help Ukrainians, some of whom were now living in Poland and elsewhere, under the $3 billion package.

“Our immediate focus right now … is how do we help the people that are under attack at the moment?”

Malpass later met with Polish economy minister Piotr Nowak and told him the World Bank was ready to support Poland through financing and advisory services as it grapples with an influx of Ukrainian refugees.