World Bank approves 200 million dollars for Ecuador

The Executive Board of the World Bank approved an additional credit for 200 million dollars to finance the Social Protection Systems project in Ecuador with the objective of reducing malnutrition in “pregnant women and children under 24 months through the provision of comprehensive service and benefit packages”

With the new resources, it is planned to expand the Social Protection Systems project, which was approved last April 2019, and the implementation of the national strategy called “Ecuador Grows without Malnutrition.”

The project has allowed the delivery of the programs of the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion (MIES) to be more equitable, due to the optimization of the mechanism to select the beneficiaries in charge of the Social Registry, as well as the technical assistance to improve the effectiveness of programs through monitoring, evaluation and institutional strengthening.

Improving living conditions

Simón Cueva, Minister of Economy and Finance, highlighted: “The Government of the Meeting works to improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable population of Ecuador. In this sense, these resources have as their main destination attacking one of the most pressing structural problems in the country, the fight against chronic child malnutrition”.

The financing is aimed at 728 parishes in the country and will support the consolidation of a new institutional model, called the Permanent Update Model (MAP). That will facilitate the integration and dynamism of the social registry to other large national administrative databases. These activities will be carried out by the Ministry of Economic and Social Inclusion, the Ministry of Public Health and the Social Registry Unit.

For her part, Marianne Fay, director of the World Bank for Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, pointed out that Ecuador’s national strategy “grows without malnutrition” is implemented by the national executive to provide protection to the most vulnerable people in the “phase of recovery from Covid-19 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030”.

The additional loan was approved at a variable rate with a fixed spread, repayable over 18 years, including a 5-year grace period.

M. Rodríguez

Click the link to subscribe to our news and media group on Telegram: https://t.me/G_ELSUMARIO_News

Source: ecuador.ur.org.