The World Bank and the government of Timor-Leste (East Timor) are this this week due start a series of consultations to prepare the new partnership agreement for the next four years, a representative of the international institution said.

Rodrigo Chaves, a Costa Rican national who has represented the World Bank in Indonesia since 2013, also told Portuguese news agency Lusa that during the consultations the various aspects of assistance to Timor-Leste will be analysed.

Issues such as nutrition, infrastructure, the human capital index and the preferential loans that the World Bank has provided to Timor-Leste, will be on the meeting’s agenda.

During the meetings a diagnosis of the country will be presented, discussing the issue of human training and the quality of social services, as well as governance and institutional capacity.

The meeting comes ahead of preparation of the Country Partnership Framework, a five-year programme that will run from 2019 and 2023 and will encompass all the World Bank initiatives in Timor-Leste.

The previous CPF, which ran from 2013 to 2017, focused on four sectors, including “improved management and services in education, health, nutrition and social protection.”

The World Bank was among Timor-Leste’s top ten partners in 2017, with projects worth US$10.34 million, according to the Ministry of Finance’s Transparency Portal for Assistance to the Country.

Total support from the World Bank currently stands at US$152.62 million, according to data from the same portal. (macauhub)