Porto Alegre to Strengthen Its Social Services with IDB Support

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a $150 million loan to enhance the health, education, labor, and social safety services in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The project will focus on improving the quality and accessibility of these services and supporting their digital transformation, aiming for a more agile response, reducing the use of paper, and improving service management.

The program will address the main sources of vulnerability for the groups most affected by the pandemic. It will provide care solutions for families with children aged zero to three by increasing the capacity of nurseries, which will allow caregivers, particularly women, to allow their caregivers, particularly women, to join the labor market.

Regarding school-aged children, the program will provide tools to enhance their skills by improving schools’ technological infrastructure and providing teacher training to ensure they can effectively use learning platforms in the classroom. Young adults (18-25 years old), the segment with the highest unemployment rate, will benefit from the +Emprego: Qualifica POA program.

This financing will also improve access to primary and intensive healthcare services in densely populated vulnerable areas, provide affordable housing for the vulnerable elderly population, alleviate vulnerable household utilities expenses by deploying photovoltaic panels that will reduce building administration fees, and provide psychosocial support. 

To ensure the efficiency of social expenses, the program will foster interoperability between the information systems of the various social-sector secretariats through the digital transformation of social services, allowing the municipality to generate an integrated view of each citizen’s interactions with the multiple secretariats.

Finally, social investment sustainability could be compromised if no action is implemented from a fiscal perspective. In response, the program combines a double strategy of reducing the “precatorios” (payment obligations by the public sector) and improving public spending to create the fiscal space to sustain social spending.       

The program will benefit the vulnerable population in Porto Alegre through the social and fiscal sector Municipality departments’ priority programs.

The loan has a grace period of six years and an interest rate based on the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR).