| Chile: WB approves US$3 million for technical assistance to social protection |
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31/10/2009 13:04 (21 Day 01:56 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- The Board of Directors of the World Bank on October 30 approved an additional financing of US$3 million to increase the effectiveness of the Social Protection Technical Assistance Project, approved in 2003.
The new loan aims to strengthen the system of social protection in Chile through two programs: Chile Solidario, that reaches extremely poor families and other vulnerable individuals, and Chile Crece Contigo, that covers young children.
Between 2000 and 2006, the share of the population below the poverty line dropped from 20.2 percent to 13.7 percent, while the share of the extremely por population fell from 5.6 percent to 3.2 percent. Nevertheless, Chile continues to struggle with high inequlity and low social mobility. Consequently, the new project seeks to reduce poverty in the share of households below the poverty line.
In particular, the activities to be financed by the World Bank will support the extension and improvement of Chile Solidario, a program that reached 328,000 poor families as of June 2009; and will also include the program Chile Crece Contigo, that targets children under 4 year of age.
The Project consists of the following components:
1. Design, upgrading and implementation of the Integrated System of Social Information (SIIS), that would be extended to incorporate the programs of Chile Crece Contigo;
2. Staff training to strengthen the capacities of MIDEPLAN and other agencies involved, in order to develop, implement and monitor the system of social protection.; as well as carrying out capacity building activities in Municipalities to improve the implementation of the programs;
3. Strengthening capacities to improve the analysis, evaluation and monitoring of social programs;
4. Institutional strengthening of MIDEPLAN, in particular, of the units in charge of coordination and evaluation of the social protection system.
The US$3 million variable-spread loan has a final maturity of 4 years and includes a grace period of 18 months.
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