UN Expects Financing Facility to Boost Loan to Lebanon for Refugees

UN Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon Philippe Lazzarini said that the United Nations expects that GCFF, established by the World Bank, the UN and the Islamic Development Bank, will increase its loan to Lebanon coping with the refugee crisis.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United Nations expects that the Global Concessional Financing Facility (GCFF), established by the World Bank, the UN and the Islamic Development Bank, will increase its loan to Lebanon coping with the refugee crisis, UN Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon Philippe Lazzarini told Sputnik.

“I expect that in the coming months and in the coming years the concessional facility will increase its loan to countries like Lebanon and Jordan,” Lazzarini said on Thursday.

Lazzarini noted that the country’s Prime Minister is set to present to the international community a master plan for the next seven years.

“It’s a master plan which is estimated to be for few billion dollar and the concessional facility will be one way to fund it, but there will also be other mechanisms the government will be looking at,” he explained.

In April, the World Bank said that some $200 million in grants from nine nations to support Syrian refugees in the past year have been leveraged to provide $1billion in interest-free credit for Jordan and Lebanon to fund health and sanitation projects in refugee camps

Since the launch of the concessional facility last year, it has received contributions from nine countries — the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States — as well as the European Commission.