Honduras has experienced moderate economic growth in the past decade, in line with the rest of the region. Despite this growth track record, limited opportunities for decent jobs for the majority of workers have resulted in stagnant poverty and inequality rates that are still the highest in Central America (CA).
... See More + In parallel, progress in human development indicators has also been mixed in the last decade. In education, while primary enrollment has significantly increased, low coverage at all other levels of education, inequalities in access and low quality persist. In health, Honduras is close to achieving the 2015 child mortality Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but maternal mortality, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and violence pose additional challenges. And despite advances in setting up a social protection system, fiscal sustainability and lack of coordination among interventions prevail, undermining poverty reduction efforts. The ability of the Honduras government to expand safety nets, to increase the access and quality of public education and health services, to engage in active labor market policies, and to improve human development indicators in general, remains limited for a number of reasons. First, overall real social public spending has been on the decline in the last few years. Second, low revenues and fiscal deterioration pose challenges to adequately financing needed social sector improvements. Third, challenges in budget formulation and execution (mainly due to institutional factors) also diminish the impact of social spending. But more importantly, Honduras needs to significantly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its social spending. This note argues that moving forward Honduras should prioritize three main aspects: a) to rationalize and increase the effectiveness of social public spending by enhancing the pro-poor features of targeting mechanisms; b) to significantly redress the imbalance between recurrent spending, especially the wage bill, and capital expenditure; and c) to continue strengthening information systems tools, legislation, and institutions in an effort to consolidate programs into fewer and higher impact interventions. Sector-specific challenges aligned with these broad objectives are addressed below.
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The objective of the Income Support Program for the Poorest Project for Bangladesh is to provide income support to the poorest mothers in selected Upazilas, while (i) increasing the mothers use of child nutrition and cognitive development services, and (ii) enhancing local level government capacity to deliver safety nets.
... See More + The project has three components. (1) Cash transfers for beneficiary mothers components will finance quarterly cash transfers to eligible households. (2) Enhancing local level government capacity component will provide the necessary inputs to Local Government Division (LGD) to facilitate the implementation of the proposed cash transfers. This will include strengthening the capacity of: (i) Union Parishads to develop the beneficiary list based on the Bangladesh Poverty Database (BPD) being developed by SID, and supervise their enrolment into ISPP; (ii) Community Clinics (CCs) to deliver the ANC and GMP services, and the CNCD awareness sessions; and (iii) Union Post Offices (UPOs) to make electronic payments to beneficiaries using the Postal Cash Cards (PCCs) upon compliance with co-responsibilities. (3) Monitoring and evaluation component will be critical to assess progress in achieving the projects objectives, and the impact of cash transfers on household poverty and on CNCD outcomes. This component will thus provide the necessary inputs to help LGD monitor ISPP beneficiary selection, enrolment, compliance with co-responsibilities, payments, case management as well as any grievances or appeals. To facilitate these activities, this component will develop an automated Management Information System (MIS) by building on the existing Shombhob Pilot MIS.
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The proposed Social Protection System Project of Mexico has objectives to support the Governments effort to: (i) increase access of PROSPERA beneficiaries to social and productive programs, and (ii) develop instruments for an integrated social protection system.
... See More + The proposed Project would have two components. Component one is to support PROSPERAs efforts to improve beneficiaries social and economic wellbeing by promoting investment in human capital and strengthening the Programs linkage with other social and productive programs while ensuring continued improvements in the Programs service delivery to its beneficiaries. The objective of the second Component is to support SEDESOL to develop new technologies and policies that will allow for better planning of social and productive interventions based on the needs of the population, improving efficiency and effectiveness of spending.
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Despite a decline in both monetary and multidimensional poverty rates since 2000, Haiti remains among the poorest and most unequal countries in Latin America.
... See More + Two years after the 2010 earthquake, poverty was still high, particularly in rural areas. This report establishes that in 2012 more than one in two Haitians was poor, living on less than $ 2.41 a day, and one person in four was living below the national extreme poverty line of $1.23 a day. Extreme poverty declined from 31 to 24 percent between 2000 and 2012, and there have been some gains in access to education and sanitation, although access to basic services is generally low and is characterized by important inequalities. Urban areas have fared relatively better than rural areas, reflecting more nonagricultural employment opportunities, larger private transfers, more access to critical goods, and services and narrowing inequality compared to rural areas. Continued advances in reducing both extreme and moderate poverty will require greater, more broad-based growth, but also a concerted focus on increasing the capacity of the poor and vulnerable to accumulate assets, generate income, and better protect their livelihoods from shocks. Special attention should be given to vulnerable groups such as women and children and to rural areas, which are home to over half of the population and where extreme poverty persists, and income inequality is increasing.
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