Contacts:
In Washington: Gabriela Aguilar (202) (202) 473-67-68
Gaguilar2@worldbank.org
In Guatemala: Virginia Barrios (502) 2329-8000 ext. 8063
vbarrios@worldbank.org Washington--October 21, 2008. The Directors of the World Bank today approved US$200 million Development Policy Loan (DPL). This is the first of three programmatic loans supporting the efforts of the Guatemalan Government to improve fiscal and institutional policies and assuring that the country benefits from its growth. Laura Fringenti, The World Bank’s Director for Central America, said “This loan will support a series of key actions for fiscal and institutional reforms included in the Guatemalan Government Agenda that seek to increase economic growth benefits, especially towards the most vulnerable population, as well as strengthening measures to improve governance and transparency of public expenses.” The objectives that the Government seeks to reach with this first DPL are: · To attend to fiscal and financial needs during a year of economic slowdown. The loan will support the Government to reach its objectives to simultaneously maintain fiscal stability and attend to social needs through a major and efficient expense. · To improve economic growth outlooks, increase fiscal spaces address public expense priorities, and contribute to improving the country’s governance and poverty reduction. The Agenda includes fiscal and institutional key reform actions assuring that Guatemala would benefit from growth and major opportunities of integration. · To improve the efficiency and transparency of the public sector administration. The loan supports the efforts of the public sector’s modernization, seeking to increase the efficiency of the public expenditures and fight against corruption, with special focus on the improvement of the financial and purchasing administration. It is expected that the efforts also will contribute to improve the climate investment and economic growth in the country. This first loan for Development Policies jointly with the other two loans of the series form part of the Strategic Partnership between The World Bank and Guatemala for 2009-2012. The supported areas are education, health and nutrition, investment in rural infrastructure, improvement of productivity, energy, and disaster mitigation, among others. For further information about the World Bank’s work in Guatemala visit: http://www.bancomundial.org.gt |
RSS