LIMA, Peru – The United Kingdom and the Inter-American Development Bank today signed an agreement to establish a trust fund to support poverty reduction and social inclusion projects in the poorest countries of Central America.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the UK Department for International Development, Gareth Thomas MP, and IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias signed the document at a ceremony held ahead of the annual meeting of the Bank’s Board of Governors, which will take place here on March 29-31.
The British government will contribute ₤900,000 (around $1.5 million) to establish the DFID-IDB Enlace Trust Fund, which will be administered by the Bank. These untied grant resources will be used to finance technical cooperation activities linked to the implementation of sustainable, effective and participatory poverty reduction strategies, in particular in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Among other areas, the Enlace Trust Fund will focus on promoting full participation of socially excluded groups and their representative organizations in development plans, programs and projects aimed at benefiting traditionally marginalized people.
The new trust fund will focus on activities supporting the design, implementation and evaluation of IDB-financed operations. Activities may include designing participatory monitoring and evaluation systems, stakeholder analysis and capacity building to help beneficiaries play an active role in projects. In addition, it may support national discussions on social inclusion and exclusion based on race, ethnicity, gender or disability.
The Enlace Trust Fund builds on a long tradition of partnership between DFID and the IDB, which have cooperated in joint financing and the administration of the UK Fund for Latin America, the UK Consultants Trust Fund and the UK CABILICA Fund, which promoted capacity-building projects for local institutions in Central America. The new trust fund is also expected to promote an exchange of lessons learned on social inclusion.
The British government will contribute an additional ₤200,000 (around $360,000) to the multi-donor Social Inclusion Trust Fund established initially by Norway in 2003 with a contribution of NOK 15 million (approximately $2.2 million).