WASHINGTON DC, March 25th, 2008 – The World Bank approved today a US$9 million loan to provide additional financing for the Pilot Community Development Project (PRODECO). This initiative benefits civil society organizations grouped in Production Committees which can thus finance their productive projects through community participation mechanisms in areas such as diversification of agricultural production, small enterprises, microentrepreneurships, artisans’ shops, ecotourism, etc. “In the last 5 years, PRODECO has directly benefited 3.700 rural and marginal urban households in the departments of Ñeembucu, Misiones e Itapúa. Among its main achievements it should be stressed the capacity to promote synergic actions of the civil organizations, local governments and the private sector” said Pedro Luis Rodríguez, World Bank Representative in Paraguay. “Additional financing for the program will make it possible to extend its actions to the departments of Caaguazú, Central, Cordillera, Guaira y Paraguari” PRODECO helps in: - Providing support to small producers in the development of income-generating sub-projects and in the development of their communities.
- Creating and strengthening local institutions and beneficiary organizations’ capacities to identify, design and carry out these activities.
The local governments of the eight departments (totaling 149 municipalities) will also benefit from the institutional strengthening of their capacities for the creation, design, implementation and supervision of the community development projects. The Project, to be implemented by the Secretariat of Social Action (which depends on the Office of the President), will be governed by high transparency standards. In order to guarantee that the project objectives are met, the project has a governability framework which emphasizes the institutional development of the implementation units and a high level of social involvement. The US$ 9 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is a fixed loan, payable in 30 years total maturity, with five years of grace.
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