The World Bank has approved a $750-million (660-million-euro) loan to support South Africa’s Covid response and to bolster the economic recovery from the pandemic, the Treasury said Friday.
In a statement, the Treasury said the loan aims at “protecting the poor and vulnerable from the adverse socio-economic impacts of the pandemic and supporting a resilient and sustainable economic recovery.”
South Africa has the continent’s second-largest economy. The pandemic has left nearly 94,000 people dead, from 3.5 million cases — the highest toll in Africa.
A series of lockdowns and health regulations hobbled the economy, pushing unemployment to a record 34.9 percent in the third quarter of last year.
Since the start of the pandemic, the World Bank has deployed over $157 billion across more than 100 countries to try to mitigate the economic fallout.