Djibouti: Food Crisis Development Policy Grant (Global Food Crisis Response Program -GFRP)

WASHINGTON, May 29, 2008- The following project was approved today by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors:

 

GFRP Grant: USD$5 Million

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The Food Crisis Response Development Policy Grant aims to support the Government’s program to mitigate the impact of the food prices on the poor, while maintaining fiscal stability. Achieving these goals will reduce hunger, help avoid an increase in poverty, help prevent social unrest, and ensure the fiscal stability needed to foster social and economic development. The policy measures supported by this grant are a) a reduction to zero of the domestic consumption taxes on five basic food items consumed by the poor (rice, sugar, cooking oil, wheat flour and powder milk); b) an expansion of food aid and existing social assistance programs (e.g. school feeding, mother-child programs and workfare programs); c) a ramping up of programs which help to improve food security and access to water of the drought-affected population; and d) the developing of an action plan to improve targeting of the poor and create more cost-effective, direct social protection mechanisms.

 

For more information, please call Dina El Naggar at (202) 473-3245 or e-mail here at delnaggar@worldbank.org

For project information on World Bank projects in Djibouti, please visit: www.worldbank.org/djibouti