Case stories on capacity development and sustainable results

28 Capacity: ResultsParaguay – Improved coordinationfor poverty reductionContextPresident Fernando Lugo’s governmentassumed office in August 2008 after60 years of one-party regime. The newgovernment faced a country with widespreadand extreme poverty, which madeit unlikely to meet most of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. To make thingsworse, the new Government was establishedwhen the international financialcrisis started spreading across countriesand regions. The Government respondedto these challenges by, inter alia, enactingthe Economic Recovery Plan (Anti-Crisis), and encouraging interagencycoordination of programmes to combatpoverty.Development resultsResultsExpanded coverage of safety-net programmes:from 13,000 to 98,000 families.Introduction of free medical consultations servicesin poor areas.500 family healthcare units established.Poverty rate significantly reduced.In the face of the global economic crisis,the poverty reduction programmes,implemented under the Anti-Crisis Plan,have been successful in reducing povertyby 2.8 percent between 2008 and 2009,with a further 1.2 percent reduction between2009 and 2010. Other importantMDG results include the reduction ofeconomic barriers to access to health. Thenumber of people in the poorest quintilethat fell ill and did not access health servicesfor economic reasons fell from 24.2percent to 13.9 percent; at the same time,institutional births increased, reaching93.3 percent and exceeding the nationaltarget.In order to achieve these results, the governmentsucceeded in up-scaling thecoverage of the conditional cash transferprogrammes, increasing the numberof beneficiary families from 13,000 to98,000. Medical consultations were madefree of charge and 500 Family HealthcareUnits were established, half of which inrural areas, thus doubling the number ofconsultations in poor areas. Around 20percent of the beneficiary families havebeen assisted by the Program for Promotionof Food Production.The ambition of the government is tobring these results to the next level and beable to provide universal social safety netcoverage within ten years.Enhanced performanceThere are three four critical success factorsof the Paraguayan experience.