Social Investment Project

closed

The Social Investment Fund Project aims at poverty alleviation by addressing the demand of the poor for priority infrastructure and services, and support for productive activities. This will be achieved by helping to improve the policies, and expand and strengthen the operations of the Panamanian Social Emergency Fund (FES). The project's two components are: (1) providing beneficiaries in the poorest districts with high-priority, small-scale infrastructure, based on community-driven proposals; and training ministries, municipalities, and nongovernmental organizations in participatory planning, subproject maintenance, social management, operations, and environmental concerns; and (2) support three pilot programs designed to: (a) provide disadvantaged population groups nationwide with priority social services; (b) contribute nationwide to micro-enterprise development by providing credit channeled through intermediary organizations and training of their staffs; and (c) meet the nutritional needs of extremely poor children, and thereby increase school attendance in selected underserved districts through an experimental program.