The World Bank (WB) announced Wednesday it was extending $405-million loan to the Philippines to support the government’s social welfare and development reform project (SWDRP) designed to some 376,000 households in the poorest parts of the Philippines.

The loan will be used to give direct cash payments to impoverished households, as well as fund a ''national household targeting system'' to identify those who need assistance, the WB said in a statement.

''The program provides cash grants to poor households to keep their children in school and give them health care, as well as promoting adequate care for pregnant women,'' the statement said.

The program will boost incomes of 376,000 households by about 20 percent, WB Country Director Bert Hofman said in the statement.

The project would strengthen the capacity of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) as a social protection agency, finance part of the new conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, and establish a national household targeting system to identify the poor and improve targeting in social protection programs.

Called “Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps),” the CCT program reduces poverty and improves children's health and schooling as well as maternal health in poor households in the poorest provinces and municipalities in the country.

The CCT program provides cash grants to poor households to keep their children in school and give them health care, as well as promoting adequate care for pregnant women.

World Bank country director Bert Hofman said supporting the country's social welfare reform agenda is central to the bank's Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) in the Philippines.

The CCT will augment incomes of beneficiary households by about 20 percent, providing them cushion against income shocks such as the food and fuel crisis in 2008 and the global financial crisis as well as strong incentives for the poor to invest in health and education of their children, said Hofman.