AFP - The World Bank Thursday said it would invest 45 billion dollars in infrastructure over the next three years to lay a foundation for a "rapid recovery" from the global economic crisis.
  
Robert Zoellick, president of the 185-nation development lender, said in a statement that the investments "can provide the platform for job creation, sustainable economic growth and overcoming poverty, and help jump-start a recovery from the crisis."
  
The World Bank said a new Infrastructure Recovery and Assets Platform (INFRA) will provide 45 billion dollars in infrastructure lending over the next three years, an increase of 15 billion dollars over the three years preceding the crisis.
  
The bank also announced an increase in its support for agriculture to 12 billion dollars over the next two years, from four billion in 2008, "to help ensure vital food security."
  
"Increases over this two-year period include a near doubling in agricultural support to Africa from 450 million dollars to 800 million, and to Latin America from 250 million to 400 million, while supporting more than one billion in new projects in agriculture and rural development in South Asia," it said.