World Bank country director pays courtesy call on President Ramkalawan |02 March 2022

Ms Pswarayi-Riddihough in a souvenir photograph with President Ramkalawan at State House (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

World Bank country director, Idah Pswarayi-Riddihough paid a courtesy call on the President of Seychelles yesterday morning at the State House.

She was accompanied by the Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan; Governor of the Central Bank, Caroline Abel; principal secretary for economic planning Elizabeth Agathine and Brinda Dabysing, a specialist at the World Bank Group.

“This is my first visit to Seychelles since my appointment as country director. This first visit was mainly to have conversations with the authorities, mainly the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank and a few other ministries to go over what we have and what are the potential new areas of collaboration that we could have. And also to see how we can partner more with the government of Seychelles. Seychelles is a middle income country and the way the World Bank tries to work with countries at this level is to support their additional growth, looking at their regional integration outside the Seychelles while encouraging private sector employment in the country,” said Ms Pswarayi-Riddihough.

Ms Pswarayi-Riddihough noted that overall, the discussions she have had were excellent. “I have to admit that is was quite an eye opener for me to be here and to look beyond the report that we have done. I actually engaged with the authorities in a collaborative manner, in the way that the bank can be more responsive, in the way that we help the government but also in the way of what we can get from the government and help them facilitate their own growth,” she added.

Regarding the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, Ms Pswarayi-Riddihough explained that the World Bank is a neutral organisation and is not concerned about the politics of the countries. “But what concerns us, in situations like this, is the livelihoods of the people in the country. Now you have to see how connected is the Seychelles to the other markets that are affected by the war and remember we already have quite a lot of issues connected to the (Covid-19) pandemic. The key thing we are thinking right now is how to actually support Seychelles through the next level of building their own resilience to be able to weather the issues that could actually come out of the interactions between Russia and Ukraine and making sure people do not fall into poverty,” explained Ms Pswarayi-Riddihough.

The key element noted the World Bank country director is not to lose track of the families that really need support as in the world the level of poverty has to a certain extent gone up. The World Bank has been discussing with the Seychelles government on how to better identify families that are really on the borderline and what kind of support they need.

“Today we see the vulnerability of Seychelles which is so much dependent on tourism and when we have shocks like that, people do not want to travel. We have to see how Seychelles can diversify its economy and how can we support the country to have deals with other similar countries,” concluded Ms Pswarayi-Riddihough.

Vidya Gappy