The World Bank approved a US$40 million loan for a Social Welfare Development Project for Croatia. This project will strengthen the quality, targeting and administration of social benefits and services to those most in need. It supports the Government’s National Program for the Reduction of Poverty.

„This project will assist in the development of a social welfare system that cares about the most vulnerable members of Croatian Society and assists them to cope with the difficulties of everyday life,“ said Anand K. Seth, World Bank Country Director for Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. It has a maturity of 15 years, including a five-year grace period.

The project will help the Croatian Government implement its strategy towards deinstitutionalization and inclusion. The project will be implemented around three components: improving social service delivery, strengthening the social welfare management information system, and upgrading existing social service facilities.

It will support the efficient administration of the social benefits system, including targeting the very poorest to receive available resources, reducing the risk of exclusion by making benefits easier to understand and easier to claim, and reducing the risk of inclusion errors by improving the information system.

The project is designed to enhance the efficiency and quality of social service delivery to better respond to client needs through the development and implementation of a set of organizational, administrative and financial mechanisms. It will also create incentives and possibilities for the development of community-based services, and for the improvement of physical infrastructure in social services.