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The development objective of the Plan Belgrano Water and Sanitation Services Development Project for Argentina is to increase sustainable access to sanitation and water supply services in the Norte Grande region of Argentina, by providing investments in infrastructure and supporting institutional development. The additional financing (AF) will help finance the costs associated with scaling-up the activities of the second Norte Grande Water Infrastructure Project to increase its development effectiveness, by: (i) improving the project coverage through financing additional activities, similar to those that have been implemented successfully, particularly in provinces that were under represented under the original loan; (ii) expanding its geographical scope to the La Rioja province, one of the poorest provinces of Argentina; and (iii) increasing the focus on the sustainability of investments. The project paper also reflects the following changes to the project: (i) a change in the project?s title (formerly Second Norte Grande Water Infrastructure Project) to Plan Belgrano Water Supply and Sanitation Services Development Project to align it with the Plan Belgrano; (ii) limited changes of implementation arrangements to introduce a possible transfer of responsibilities for low-risk procurement activities to provincial water supply and sanitation (WSS) service providers; (iii) a reallocation of the original loan proceeds among disbursement categories and an increase in the percentage of Bank financing; (iv) an update of the results framework and monitoring indicators; and (v) an extension of the original loan closing date from April 30, 2017 to April 30, 2020, to coincide with the closing date of the additional loan, to allow all ongoing and planned works and activities to be completed and to fully achieve the project development objective (PDO).
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