IMF and World Bank to Discuss Restoring Support for Syria

Welat TV – Erbil

United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Abdullah al-Dardari announced that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank will discuss the resumption of aid to Syria during a meeting next week.

Speaking to Reuters on Friday, April 18, 2025, Dardari said that a meeting on Syria, which will include Saudi Arabia and the World Bank, is scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the annual meetings of international financial bodies in Washington next week. During the meeting, officials will discuss key steps toward restoring the World Bank and IMF to resume support for Syria, despite the sanctions that remain a major obstacle to the country’s reconstruction. “It gives a signal to the rest of the world and to the people of Syria that you have these biggest financial institutions ready to support,” he said.

Al-Dardari addressed the news that Saudi Arabia plans to pay about $15 million in Syria’s arrears to the World Bank, stressing that this debt will allow the World Bank to support Syria through its International Development Association, which provides funds to low-income countries. “We want to be part of the international financial system and hope that the international community will help us to remove any obstacle to this integration,” he said.

Al-Dardari noted that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has received a sanctions waiver from the US Treasury Department to raise $50 million to repair the Deir Ali power plant south of Damascus.