The Treasury Department announced Friday that the Community Adjustment and Investment Program (CAIP), an affiliate of the North American Development Bank, awarded a $600,000 grant to the New Mexico Border Authority for job training in Dona Ana county. The grant is the first award of the CAIP's new grant and technical assistance program.

Working with the New Mexico Border Authority, the CAIP developed both short- and long-term strategies to assist workers in Dona Ana county. The CAIP grant will be used to begin training workers immediately for jobs that are being created by the private sector at the rate of approximately two each day, thereby helping to ensure continued expansion of new and existing industry along the New Mexico border. In the first year, the program plans to train approximately 900 workers to fill new jobs and retrain 400 currently employed workers. Additionally, the program will assess the skills of unemployed and underemployed workers in the region to develop a long-term training program.

The CAIP is providing its grant as seed money and is working with the Department of Labor, the Economic Development Administration and local private entities to expand the job training program over the next few years. The planned expansion includes an apprentice program for local youth and ultimately the establishment of a permanent job training center to service the entire New Mexico border region.

The CAIP encourages and fosters economic opportunities within communities that have experienced temporary job displacements related to implementation of North American Free Trade Agreement. To date, the program has facilitated more than $155 million in loans and loan guarantees in 25 states, helping to create or preserve over 5,100 jobs.

The CAIP is a domestic program affiliated with the North American Development Bank (NADBank), an international financial institution jointly capitalized and governed by the United States and Mexico to finance environmental projects along the U.S./Mexico border and to provide financial assistance for domestic community adjustment and investment in both countries. Approximately 10 percent of the U.S. contribution to the NADBank is earmarked for domestic needs which are addressed by the CAIP.