What we do
Four sectors, three instruments, and one rule: the partner institution leads.
Priorities
Four sectors, chosen rather than inherited
Education and skills
Schools and technical institutes, teacher development, and the vocational routes that connect training to work that actually exists.
Health systems
Primary care, diagnostic capacity, and the clinical and administrative training that keeps a facility running after it is built.
Water and climate resilience
Supply, treatment and reuse. Bahrain is among the most water-scarce countries on earth and has had to solve this at home first.
Economic opportunity
Access to finance for small enterprise, financial inclusion, and the regulatory groundwork that lets a market function — the field Bahrain knows best.
How we work
Three instruments
- 01
Concessional loans
Long-tenor finance below market rates, for public infrastructure that will generate the revenue or the savings to repay it.
- 02
Grants
For work that cannot carry debt: feasibility and design, institutional capacity, and recovery after crisis.
- 03
Technical cooperation
Bahraini expertise placed alongside a counterpart institution — secondments, training, and advice on regulation and operations.
The project cycle
How a project reaches approval
- 01
Identification
A partner government or institution brings a proposal. The Agency does not solicit projects it has designed itself.
- 02
Appraisal
Technical, financial and environmental appraisal, carried out with the proposing institution rather than over it.
- 03
Approval and agreement
Terms are set and published. The financing agreement records what each side is accountable for.
- 04
Disbursement and supervision
Funds are released against progress. Supervision is joint, and problems are recorded when they occur rather than at the end.
- 05
Evaluation
Carried out after the project has been operating long enough to be judged, and published either way.