The World Bank Brazil-Salvador Social Multi-Sector Service Delivery Project (P162033)

The primary tool that the Municipality adopted to sharpen its institutional capacity for policy prioritization is the strategic plan, implemented since 2014. A unit within the Mayor's office ( Casa Civil ) led the preparation of the strategic plan and monitors its execution. The Mayor regularly reviews the implementation status of each of the priority actions to ensure their timely completion. In pursuit of greater efficiency through economies of scale, the Municipality has centralized procurement. It also established a single mechanism for contract and supply management, which have already generated significant savings. Informed by the results of a public servant census, new career plans were approved and wage scales revised to improve the conditions of civil servants in key service delivery sectors, including in education. In addition, the municipality is currently recruiting a new cadre of public management specialists through a competitive process. Once recruited, they are expected to be deployed in selected line secretariats. Similarly, merit-based recruitment processes are underway to professionalize and replace contract personnel in key sectors, such as social assistance. New information systems are being implemented to improve human resource administration, procurement, and financial management. The proposed operation will support relevant aspects of the municipal strategic plan for the period 2017-20. It will prioritize support for the municipality's continued efforts to close the remaining service coverage gaps and improve service quality. An explicit objective will include ensuring that additional investments and expenditures will not compromise the city's long -term fiscal outlook. This will be pursued with measures to control long-term growth of expenditures, including aggressive pursuit of service contracting, where appropriate, and introduction of systematic approaches to managing major cost items including personnel. At the same time, the city does need to continue to invest in solidifying its institutional foundations for service delivery in selected areas, most notably social assistance, including by recruiting a necessary number of statutory civil servants to manage the sector's critical functions that, legally as well as managerially, cannot be outsourced to contractual staff.

Relationship to CPF

The proposed Salvador Social Project is aligned with the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) 2012-2015 (Report No. 63731- BR) discussed by the Executive Directors on November1, 2011. This proposed operation is one of a numberofsub-national projects design ed to strengthen public sector management and service delivery, as an integral part of the Bank's Country Partnership Strategy in Brazil. The CPS states that its goal is for the Bank to contribute to Brazil's aim of faster, more inclusive and more environmentally sustainable growth, with macroeconomic stability. In this context, the proposed Project will contribute to the CPS strategic objective of improving quality and expanding provision of public services for low income households . Results areas of education, health, and social assistance will improve the living conditions of low income populations living in the city. The Government's strategy to modernize public sector management and introduce greater results orientation would further contribute to improvements in the provision of public services. The Project's proposed design is fully aligned with the World Bank Group twin goals of poverty reduction and increasing shared prosperity. Investments in education, health, and social assistance, in parallel with the modernization of public management including strengthening of tax administration, will be designed to improve the human capital and welfare of families living in Salvador.

### C. Proposed Development Objective(s)

To improve the poor's access to quality social services while ensuring fiscal sustainability in the Municipality of Salvador