US$30 Million Allocated for Preparing for a Sustainable & Resilient Financial Future | SOUALIGA NEWSDAY

SINT MAARTEN (POND ISLAND) – The proposed First Public Finance, Social Insurance and Resilience Development Policy Operation is the first in a series of two operations that aim to support Sint Maarten’s comprehensive approach to a sustainable and resilient financial future. 

The Government of Sint Maarten and the Netherlands agreed that a part of the required budget support could be provided through a Bank-supervised programmatic Development Policy Operation (DPO). 

On January 25, 2019 Sint Maarten officially requested the preparation of a series of DPOs in a letter to members of the Trust Fund Steering Committee. US$30 million has since been allocated in the Trust Fund for this purpose.

The term DPO stands for Development Policy Operation and is tied to a number of actions government must complete to the satisfaction of the World Bank amongst other agreed upon areas.

The first set of actions were completed, followed by the compilation of the necessary accompanying documents. This was then communicated to the World Bank and St. Maarten awaits an initial response in order to proceed with the follow-up steps. The successful completion of these actions is expected to trigger the release of USD 15 million.