Community and Local Government Basic Social Services Project

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The development objective of the Community and Local Government Basic Social Services Project for Benin is to improve access to decentralized basic social services and social safety nets, and to strengthen the social protection system. There are three components to the project, the first component being improving decentralized service delivery. This component aims to continue support for improving the delivery of basic services at the decentralized level in line with the PAG, which foresees continued support for decentralized services through the FADeC, and the PONADEC. It will support fiscal transfers to local governments (communes) to be used for investments that are included in their Commune Development Plan (Plan de Développement Communal – PDC), as well as measures to improve their capacity and performance. Eligible expenditures will include investment projects in the areas of education, health, rural roads, and market infrastructure. This component includes three subcomponents: technical assistance and capacity building for decentralized service delivery, service delivery grants, and technical assistance and capacity building for community execution of sub‐projects. The second component is the social safety nets and social protection systems. This component will scale up the safety nets pilot initiated under PSDCC and adapt it to complement the ARCH initiative by adding accompanying measures (training and micro‐entrepreneurial support) to encourage a sustainable improvement in beneficiaries’ livelihoods. The component will also support the strengthening of social protection systems, including the national social registry. This component includes three subcomponents: safety nets, training and microentrepreneurial support, and technical assistance and capacity building for social protection systems. Finally, the third component is the project management. The objective of this component is to support activities related to project management and coordination through the SSDCC. This includes staff‐related costs, equipment, vehicles, fuel, office space, and communications costs, and operating costs related to the procurement, supervision, auditing and evaluation of project activities.