The World Bank is funding a comprehensive social protection package to help reduce extreme poverty in the country’s poorest provinces. This is a variable-margin US$75 million loan, with a 34-year maturity period and a five-year grace period.
The loan will help poor people to access the National Health Insurance plan (Senasa) and will provide education to the most vulnerable citizens through the Ministry of Education and National Institute of Technical and Vocational Training (Infotep) programs.
The project supports the DR’s Social Policy Cabinet coordinated by the Vice President’s Office.
The 14 provinces that will benefit are Elias Pina, San Juan de la Maguana, National District, Bahoruco, Barahona, Independencia, Azua, San Cristobal, Pedernales, El Seibo, Santiago, Montecristi, Santo Domingo and Monte Plata.
The loan will be channeled through the Progresando and Solidaridad programs under the Vice President’s office. Vice President Margarita Cedeno, who is the country’s social policy cabinet coordinator, said that “the loan would also support the Solidaridad Program that uses conditional cash transfers as a key for entering the households to work in developing human and social capital, with greater emphasis on employability, housing improvement, citizen culture and complementarities with the national health insurance.”
Upon making the announcement, World Bank Caribbean Director Sophie Sirtaine said, “This project tries to provide equal opportunities for all Dominicans, by strengthening existing safety nets and improving the employability of the most vulnerable people, with a particular focus on young men and women.” She added that it would help strengthen the targeting system and scale up an innovative system of citizen reports for more efficiency and transparency in the social protection system.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/03/12/wbdominican-republic-more-than-13-million-poor-dominicans-to-benefit-from-social-protection-better-employability-and-housing