The Diplomat
The Council of Ministers yesterday authorized the granting of a credit of twenty million dollars (18.2 million euros) to the Dominican Republic, from the Fund for the Promotion of Development (FONPRODE), to finance a solid waste program in Gran Santo Domingo.
The purpose of the loan is to co-finance, together with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Program for the Integral and Sustainable Management of Solid Waste in Gran Santo Domingo, which aims to contribute to the improvement of the integral management of urban solid waste in the Dominican Republic by mitigating the negative environmental and social impacts of the nine open dumps in the Program’s area of influence and closing the Duquesa landfill, which especially affects the neighborhoods of Los Casabes and Duquesa. This program is expected to benefit approximately 3.7 million people in the Gran Santo Domingo area, mainly, all with a focus on environmental and climate resilience.
The program will be co-financed by the IDB, which will contribute US$44.2 million (40.3 million euros), and by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which will contribute US$45 million (41 million euros), in addition to the FONPRODE credit. In total, the program has an investment amount of almost 110 million dollars (100.3 million euros) over the next five years.
According to the V Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation, the Dominican Republic is a Middle Income Association country. Furthermore, it is located in one of the areas with the greatest exposure to the Fund, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a strategically critical region for the Fifth Master Plan and the main recipient of bilateral Official Development Assistance issued by Spain.
This operation would be aligned with the objectives of the Spanish Cooperation, contributing directly to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets, specifically SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation, by improving water quality through leachate treatment), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure, through the development of new infrastructure) and SDG 15 (life of Terrestrial Ecosystems, reducing waste in the area surrounding the landfill).
In addition, the Council of Ministers authorized a payment of up to US$300,000 (almost 274,000 euros) to the Inter-American Development Bank, under the Fund for the Promotion of Development, for the preparation and supervision of the aforementioned Program for the Integral and Sustainable Management of Solid Waste in Gran Santo Domingo.
