IDB offers financial support for social projects in L. America

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has offered financial support to social projects in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Argentina, said the bank on Thursday.

The IDB said it will provide a conditional credit of 100 million U.S. dollars to the Dominican Republic to build schools, lengthen school day and improve reading, writing and math skills of students.

Under the program, 34 secondary schools will be built, each with an average of 14 classrooms. The funds will also be used to refurbish more than 200 elementary schools and supply some 3,000 libraries with 80 books each.

The money will also help provide training for 10,000 teachers and hundreds of district experts and school principals, said the IDB.

The bank also gave Venezuela a loan of 50 million U.S. dollars to promote efficient use of water, improve water services and increase coverage of water access.

The Venezuelan government said it will also provide 25 million dollars to implement the program, which may benefit 80,000 homes.

The IDB also approved a 3-million-dollar loan and a 690,000-dollar technical assistance donation to allow natural gas access to 7,000 low-income families of Greater Buenos Aires in Argentina.

This project in Argentina was based on a previous program named Solidarity Networks Trust, which gave gas access to 4,000 families in five Buenos Aires neighborhoods in the past three years.

The IDB was established in 1959 to support the economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean by lending money and providing guarantees to the governments of the region.

Source:Xinhua