Global Policy Forum

By Marcela Valente

The World Bank signed a 600-million- dollar loan Wednesday to provide urgent relief to struggling Argentine families with unemployed heads of household, while protests heated up against the government's subsidy plan to demand broader coverage. The loan, most of which will be disbursed this year, is among the first good news to come in the wake of the accord the Eduardo Duhalde government reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Friday, allowing this crisis-stricken nation to put off its debt payments to the multilateral credit agencies for eight months.

The World Bank deal comes amidst protests led by organisations of unemployed workers, who criticise the ''political manipulation'' of the subsidy programme that is supposed to benefit them, and the paucity of the stipends paid out. The protesters also charge that the state aid does not cover the population that was hardest hit by the collapse of the Argentine economy last year and who continue to suffer the effects of the recession, now in its fifth year. However, World Bank vice-president for Latin America and the Caribbean, David de Ferranti, said he is optimistic about Argentina's future.

The major challenges that confronted the Argentine people in 2002 are fading into the past, said De Ferranti, noting that the accord signed with the IMF contributed towards rebuilding the international financial community's confidence in the country's economic potential. This, he said, justified the World Bank decision in favour of granting additional support to be earmarked for the Heads of Household programme, implemented by the Duhalde government in May 2002 to aid 1.1 million people. The monthly stipend for unemployed heads of household, financed until now with state resources alone, will now reach 1.85 million people, according to the Bank's projections.

The World Bank's aim is to support the most vulnerable sectors of Argentine society by working with the government-led plan, which the Bank considers a ''fast, effective and transparent'' vehicle for reaching the poorest people, said De Ferranti. According to official figures, unemployment reached 21.4 percent of the economically active population in May 2002, and fell to 17.8 percent in December, when the government included the beneficiaries of the Heads of Household plan in the tally of the employed.

Under the government initiative, families with minor children or other dependents receive 150 pesos (46 dollars) a month. This sum covers barely one-third of the ''basic food basket'' to feed a family of four. Unlike other programmes that distributed food to the poor and unemployed, this initiative of the Duhalde government entails cash payments that beneficiaries can collect at their local banks.

Labour minister Graciela Camaño says the World Bank loan, which is to be paid back in 15 years (with a five-year grace period), will give the plan greater manoeuvrability, though warned against high expectations that the programme would provide for everyone in need or that the monthly stipend would increase. This was Camaño's nod to the anger that organisations of unemployed workers have been voicing for the last two weeks as they engage in protests and set up roadblocks on principle routes in the countryside and in the city. The minister played down the demands, saying the protests are ''extortion'' and that the leaders of the movement are trying to gain control over the subsidies for their own political ends.

Protests continued Wednesday outside the Labour Ministry, and three groups of the unemployed -- the Combative Classist Current (CCC), Land and Housing Federation, and the Teresa Rodrí­guez Organisation -- called a nationwide protest. Around 400 protesters say they will camp in front of the Labour Ministry until their demands are heard, including the extension of the monthly stipend to cover the elderly and unemployed young people, and an increase to 300 pesos (92 dollars).

CCC leader Juan Carlos Alderete said new protests would be launched Monday if Duhalde does not intervene to reinstate those who have been removed from the Heads of Household roster and put an end to the infighting within the ruling party about the distribution of the stipend. The protests would consist of roadblocks on highways in all Argentine provinces, and could be maintained until the president agrees to meet personally with the movement's leaders and takes steps towards meeting their demands, he said.

But minister Camaño responded Wednesday saying that the programmes for the unemployed ''will not be used as booty by political leaders or protest leaders,'' and assured that the beneficiaries who were no longer on the programme roster had found jobs, so were automatically removed. She added that the programme includes control mechanisms, such as a phone-in centre for questions and complaints, which had received more than 1,000 claims. ''Some of the callers charged that the unemployed movement is extorting the beneficiaries,'' the minister told World Bank officials.

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