IBRD Loan: US$1.250 billion
Terms: Maturity = 17 years; Grace = 10 years
Project ID: P122349
Project Description: The additional financing for the Support to Oportunidades Project will support Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, Oportunidades, which currently serves about 5.6 million poor families. As a large program with a demonstrated ability to reach a wide share of the poor and to have a positive impact on human capital formation, Oportunidades has been central in the domestic policy response of the Government of Mexico to the global economic crisis. The Mexican Government is implementing additional and expanded activities that scale up the Program's impact and development effectiveness. During the first part of 2010, Oportunidades expanded its coverage by about 8 percent (roughly 400,000 families, from 5.2 million at the end of 2009 to 5.6 million in June 2010), largely in urban areas, and added a new cash benefit for participants with very young children. The additional financing will support the operation of the scaled-up Oportunidades over the period 2011-2013 as well as continued efforts to improve its effectiveness.
