World Bank Supports Serbia’s Transition Toward Greener Economy with a Loan of Around EUR 150 Million

The First Green Transition Programmatic Development Policy Loan was approved yesterday by the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors, providing EUR 149.9 million in support of Serbia’s bolstered efforts to strengthen its public sector institutions on a path to achieving resilient, greener, and more inclusive economic growth that is sustainable across generations, the bank announced in a press release.

– The Government of Serbia has taken a major step forward on the journey to making the green transition a reality and this budget support operation is designed to strengthen those efforts – said Nicola Pontara, World Bank Country Manager for Serbia.

He added that creating and sustaining opportunities, while innovating toward cleaner and more resilient economic growth, might be challenging but also rewarding.

The loan, as said, is the first in a programmatic series of two operations. It supports policy and institutional reforms to “better align fiscal management with the green agenda by increasing the transparency of budgetary spending on climate-related activities and on the environment”.

It aims to accelerate the clean energy transition through energy market reforms to make the national energy utility, EPS, sustainable and through a faster adoption of renewables while protecting energy-vulnerable consumers.

It also helps Serbia to align its domestic legislation with European Union standards on climate and environment action, with emphasis on waste and air quality management.

The loan has been prepared in partnership with the French Development Agency (Agence Française de Développement, AFD) and the German Development Bank (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, KfW), each of which will also be providing financing to the Government of Serbia.

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Elektroprivreda Srbije ad Beograd

KfW kancelarija Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

World Bank

Elektroprivreda Srbije

EPS

gence Française de Développement

German Development Bank

Government of Serbia

KfW

Nicola Pontara

The First Green Transition Programmatic Development Policy Loan

green transition

green agenda