Furthermore, the information available on “COVID-19 Projects” financed by banks such as CAF,
FONPLATA or CABEI in Argentina is scarce or even non-existent. For example, the Support Program
for Local Assistance in the Emergency financed by FONPLATA only has the brief contextualization
of a paragraph about the project and its objectives, and some basic information such as the date
of approval, the status or the amount of the project. Although some documents about the project
are available (albeit they only include purchase lists linked to the project), there are no essential
documents about the project that detail its components, socio-environmental impacts, financing
characteristics or management plans, among other factors. Similarly, the Post-Emergency Rural
Recovery and Development Program financed by CABEI only has basic information and a single
document on the project published on the Bank’s website. Although this document contains general information about the project and its possible impacts, which allows a general appreciation
of the project, it does not contain any information regarding the participation and consultation
processes required for the project, the environmental and social management plans for dealing
with project impacts, or details of project approval and implementation, among other elements.
Lastly, the Line of Credit for the Provincial Emergency Assistance Support Program financed by
CAF does not have any type of information about the project available on the Bank’s website.
The only available data on it are the name of the project, the approved amount (USD 40 million)
and the approval date (April 3, 2020). Any other information about the project is inaccessible,
leading to almost total ignorance about the project, its objectives, its approval process and other
relevant information on a project that could be considered strategic, given that, apparently, it was
managed and approved in response to the consequences of the pandemic.
In the case of the Argentine government, the website of the Secretary for Strategic Affairs includes
a section on Projects with International Financing that contains relatively up-to-date information
on the loans in execution that are financed by the different financing institutions. However, the
information available in this case is also very scarce and insufficient since it only contains data
on the name of the projects, the institution that finances them, the amounts and the closing date,
without including documents about the projects or, at least, links that redirect to other websites
with more information (such as the banks’ websites in the cases of projects financed by the IDB or
the World Bank, for example).
As mentioned before, some of the projects financed by DFIs in the country in the context of the
pandemic were approved through quick disbursement windows, which raises doubts regarding
issues such as proper compliance with the corresponding transparency and accountability
requirements, project negotiation and approval deadlines, and public participation and
consultation processes, among other matters. It is striking that projects that usually take several
months to be approved are being approved in very short periods of time, of even less than two
months, as is the case with some IDB and World Bank projects.
As an example of this, we can return to the project AR-L1326: Immediate Public Health Response
Project in the context of the COVID-19 Pandemic to contain, control and mitigate its effect on
the provision of health services in Argentina, for which the IDB redirected USD 490 million that
were available under the “Flexible Risk Mitigation Facility” (AR-O0009) of the “Program to support
productive infrastructure financing in Argentina,” approved in 2018, in order to finance actions
that contribute to responding to the health emergency produced by COVID-19. It is striking how
little time elapsed between the formal request to reformulate the project so as to redirect of
funds, received by the Bank on March 27, 2020; the date of the public consultations, April 23 and
24, 2021; the approval date of the project’s Strategic Environmental Assessment (SESA), April 27,
2020, and the approval of the operation by the Board of Executive Directors, on May 18, 2020.
In other words, the entire process for project approval took less than two months, which raises
serious doubts as to whether all the requirements for the approval of a project have actually been
met. In addition, it is striking that the SESA could have been published only 3 days after the public
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DFIs FINANCING IN ARGENTINA DURING THE PANDEMIC:
COVID-19 PROJECTS AND TRANSPARENCY SHORTCOMINGS
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