Panama to Receive USD 50 Million CAF Funding for COVID-19 Responsiveness

In order to help address the healthcare emergency declared by Panama and the measures being taken by the government, CAF—development bank of Latin America—approved USD 50 million of its regional contingent line of credit, with the purpose of strengthening Panama’s responsiveness to address the COVID-19 pandemic and reducing the risk or mitigating the impact on people’s health, through direct financial resources and reimbursement of expenditures and investments for project execution, purchase and provision of goods, and/or services and purchase of supplies, among others.

CAF funding will support the actions of the National Operational Plan of the Healthcare System for the Prevention and Control of COVID-19, which is implemented nationwide through the Ministry of Health (MINSA) and the Center for Health Emergency Operations (CODES) as set out in the Declaration of the National State of Emergency issued on March 13, 2020.

“As development bank of Latin America, we prioritize swift and timely funding for the government of Panama to continue implementing measures to address this health emergency, in order to reduce risk and mitigate the impact on people’s health caused by the spread of COVID-19,” said CAF executive chairman Luis Carranza Ugarte.

This line of credit is in addition to the USD 400,000 donation for the purchase and installation of advanced ventilators for adult, pediatric and neonatal intensive care. To address the effects of the pandemic in Latin America, CAF offered in early March a regional credit line of USD 50 million per country to address the health emergency, non-refundable resources in the amount of USD 400,000 per country and a USD 2.5 billion emergency regional credit line to support countercyclical economic measures.