DECENTRALIZTN & REGL

closed

The principal objective of the Decentralization and Regional Development Project is to increase the access of poor and indigenous populations in the four poorest states of Mexico to basic infrastructure, social services, larger markets, and agricultural technologies. The project consists of three components: investment; environmental and archeological site protection; and (c) institutional development. The investment component will finance programs for infrastructure projects (rural roads and rural electrification), productive projects (agriculture, forestry and agroindustries), and social projects (education, water supply and sewerage systems). The environmental preservation and archeological protection component will finance a program (the Lacandona Protection Plan) which will: (a) protect the last remaining humid forest area in Mexico; (b) strengthen the institutional capacity of federal offices, state agencies, and municipalities in order to improve project assessment techniques and environmental policy implementation; and (c) finance the restoration of selected archeological sites. The institutional development component will finance costs for strenghtening: (a) project executing agencies; (b) state and municipal planning and budgeting systems; and (c) the state and municipal entities to assume additional administrative functions that they have and will be receiving under the government's program of decentralization.