Sustaining Social Gains for Economic Recovery

closed

The Sustaining Social Gains for Economic Recovery (SSGER) Program Development Policy Loan (DPL) will assist the Government of El Salvador (GoES) to undertake immediate measures in the anti-crisis plan to protect the poor, while supporting the process of economic recovery through the design of new initiatives and institutional strengthening in the social sectors. Apart from providing a part of the financing for the anti-crisis plan, the DPL will also enable the Bank to provide technical assistance in the area of institutional strengthening and policy development to a new Government with limited experience in the executive branch. The SSGER DPL will contribute to building a fiscally sustainable medium term development policy and serve as a platform for dialogue with the GoES, opposition parties and civil society on the reform agenda. The DPL is structured around three pillars: a) protecting fiscal space for social expenditures. The DPL will help to protect non-personnel recurrent spending and essential investments that are required to sustain the quality of education and health services, while generating resources from the reduction of the transport subsidy; b) protecting income and consumption of the vulnerable populations. The DPL will support the launch of essential social programs including the protection and extension of access to basic health and education services and the provision of temporary income support to unemployed persons in poor municipalities; and c) strengthening institutional capacity for policy formulation and implementation in the social sectors for economic recovery. The DPL will support specific actions to build the capacity of the Ministries of Education and Health, as well as the Technical Secretariat of the President (Secretaria Tknica de la Presidencia - STP), which is in charge of coordinating and monitoring the implementation of social policy.