URBAN DEVELOPMENT

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This first Bank-financed Urban Development Project in Boliva is aimed at improving the difficult living conditions of the urban poor and in particular the families living the lowest-income neighborhoods of La Paz. The project provides serviced plots with core dwellings under a sites and services program, essential urban services in low-income areas under an urban upgrading scheme, retail food markets, credits for artisans and small-scale enterprises to provide jobs and create employment for the project participants, and technical assistance to strengthen institutional arrangements and technical capabilities of the executing agencies. The project is designed so that its benefits will reach down, in the case of urban upgrading, to households as low as 5th percentile of income groups in La Paz. The main risks faced by the project would be those associated with coordination and implementation of a complex project in the social sector.