|
Banco Agrícola and PADF sign Agreement
Día a Día
Translation by PADF
Banco Agrícola will contribute a percentage of the commission that in charges on remittances transfers to family members in El Salvador, to implement development projects in different communities of the Central American country in coordination with organizations and the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), a non profit organization affiliated to the Organization of American Sates (OAS).
According to Dale A. Crowell, PADF project manager, the organization has already worked on a first phase in El Salvador with support from the United States International Development Agency and is now working on a new phase through an agreement signed with Banco Agrícola that with no doubt will strengthen the collaborations between the private and the public sector in development projects in the Central American country.
PADF will manage the funds and will work with Salvadoran communities in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey, to give them a series of training sessions which will help them develop projects in their respective communities of origin.
The training sessions will be help in May, April, and June requesting proposals and, at the end of June, they will collect all the proposals and during the month of July will evaluate and select between three and six projects to co-finance in El Salvador.
The communities who win this contest have to contribute 38% of the project costs. There are projects that have proposed between $15,000 and $37,000, but the fund created by PADF and BA will only support projects between $10,000 and $25,000 which can be used to implement projects related to health, education, housing, or other social development activities.
The Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) is a non profit organization affiliated to the Organization of American States (OAS). It was founded in 1962 as part of John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress and its original focus was on the collaboration of the private and the public sector. Crowell estimated that with Banco Agrícola’s contribution, they will be able to create a fund of about $150,000 in the first year which could increase for next year depending on the transfers made by Salvadorans through BA.
Last year, PADF signed an agreement with a Haitian bank with agencies in the West coast and which provides wire transfer services, but only to build one school in four months. Dale A. Crowell said that the idea behind these projects is that the community participates in these activities. In the United States, PADF continues to look for companies who want to work with us. We believe that with the agreement with Banco Agrícola, there will be other interested companies. The priorities have to be set by the communities in the United States and the communities of origin to improve, he concluded.
|
|