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afrol.com, 5 July - The World Bank has approved a US$ 33 million credit to assist the government of Angola increase the sustainable use of basic social and economic services by target populations. The Second Social Action Fund Credit will support the government's efforts to improve the quality of life and focus on facilitating the social and economic recovery of communities. It will also address the restoration of basic social and economic services through demand-driven, community-oriented projects that target individuals and groups affected by conflict. This will be achieved through the following components: · Social and Economic Infrastructure - will support the development of a wide range of small and medium scale social and economic infrastructure. · Capacity Building - will assist community members to better organize and empower themselves · Monitoring and Evaluation - will focus on measuring and controlling performance in project execution, as well as on systematically collecting data on the impact of project activities on the direct beneficiaries. "This project will be a follow-on of an earlier Social Action Fund project which helped over one million poor people in Angola," says Wim Alberts, the project's team leader. "It will continue to help communities make better use of their resources and apply skills to solve upcoming problems." Government expenditures in the social sectors have been traditionally low, and they declined sharply after 1991 as military expenditures grew to absorb a large part of the budget. The reduction of allocations for education and health resulted in a serious deterioration of the service delivery systems. The credit will contribute towards general economic recovery and poverty alleviation. However, Angola has begun to carry out economic reforms and the government has made strong advances and weakened the guerilla movement, UNITA. This provides an opportunity for the government to reduce military spending and increase the funding for social and poverty oriented programs. The project will be financed by a credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's lending arm for the poorest countries. The IDA credit is on standard terms of 40 years maturity, including 10 years grace. The government and other donors will finance the project with an additional US$14 million.
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