A new loan from IDB

By Dana Niland
CJ Contributor

The Inter-American Development Bank has approved a $10 million loan in an initiative to reduce poverty and create jobs in Barbados.

The program aims to alleviate the country’s poverty and unemployment rates through a program comprised of three components.

Firstly, the program will work to expand and consolidate the Identification, Stabilization, Enablement, and Empowerment (ISEE) Bridge Program.

The initiative will also aid 8,000 unemployed Barbadians through improved employment services, better local labor market information demand-drive technical training programs.

Finally, the program aims to create an efficient Management Information System (MIS) that will connect programs enacted by Barbados government agencies, thereby strengthening the government’s coordination and accountability capacities.

The new program will cover 250 additional houses – amounting to approximately 2,000 individuals – over the course of a four-year period, focusing on the following disciplines: personal identification, education and human resource development, family dynamics, and health promotion.

The policies that will be implemented in this effort include the financing of daycare programs, school meals, textbooks, uniforms, remedial learning courses, and certain health promotion services.

The IDB will provide $5 million of the loan from its ordinary capital, with a matching $5 million contribution from the China co-financing fund.