On December 4, the Ministry of Social Policy and the World Bank signed an agreement, allocating $1.2 billion for financing social payments in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Ministry's press service reported that Oksana Zholnovych, the Minister of Social Policy, and Arup Banerji, the World Bank's Regional Director for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine, signed the agreement to initiate the "Investments in Social Protection to Increase Coverage, Resilience, and Effectiveness (INSPIRE)" project. The project will be financed through a $1.2 billion loan from the World Bank.

The funds from the project will be directed to the general state budget fund and will provide financing for 29 social payments outlined in the state budget for 2023 and 2024. This support from the World Bank aims to ensure the sustainability of social expenditures and timely disbursement to citizens in need.

Additionally, the project is designed to implement essential reforms in the social protection sphere, including the digitization of the social support system, enhancing the targeting of payments for internally displaced persons (IDPs), and introducing a co-financing mechanism for specific social services from the state budget.