The World Bank has approved 450 million dollars credit to Tanzania to improve social safety nets for more than five million Tanzanians, more than half of them women, World Bank on Friday said.
This is contained in a statement issued by Bella Bird, the World Bank Country Director for Tanzania in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
Bird said the 450-million-dollar International Development Association (IDA) credit to the Second Productive Social Safety Net Project (PSSN II), implemented by state-run Tanzania Social Action Fund, and would seek to improve food consumption and livelihood.
The new financing will also seek to increase children’s primary school attendance and completion and their access to healthcare, Bird said.
The country director added that the financing would also improve secondary school participation.
“Tanzania’s social safety net programme helped beneficiaries to save more money and obtain more assets. As a result, many had more food and access to better education and health care,” said Bird.
She said this new support will be critical to improve the lives of many more people in need and overall raise the country’s human capital index.
“We will continue to work with the government and engage with citizens and other stakeholders on the complex set of development issues facing the country and its people,” said Bird.
In 2012, the government of Tanzania began implementing the scaled-up first phase supported by IDA through PSSN I, which attained its target of reaching one million households by September 2015, well ahead of schedule, according to the statement.
PSSN I targeted more than 10 per cent of the country’s population, approximately 650,000 households living under the food poverty line as well as about 350,000 at-risk of falling under that line, he said.
The objective of this PSSN II is to provide poor households with income-earning opportunities and socio-economic services, while enhancing and protecting the human capital of their children.
The World Bank’s IDA was established in 1960 to help the world’s poorest countries by providing grants and loans for projects and programmes that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives.
