Jordan Emergency Cash Transfer COVID-19 Response Additional Financing

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The proposed Additional Financing (AF) and restructuring of the parent Project would entail the following changes: (i) a revision of the PDO to include “workers”; (ii) a revision to project components, including the cancelation of subcomponent 1.3 (Temporary benefit top-up for Takaful-1 beneficiaries); (iii) the addition of a new component (Component 4) “Support to workers in firms affected by COVID-19”; (iv) the addition of a new implementing agency, MOPIC with SSC as implementing partner, to implement Component 4; (v) a reallocation of loan proceeds across categories and components; and (vi) an extension to the original loan closing date by 18 months (from June 30, 2022, to December 31, 2023) to align it with that of the AF.The current PDO “the project development objective is to provide cash support to poor and vulnerable households affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan” will be revised to “the project development objective is to provide cash support to poor and vulnerable households and workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan”. Under the proposed AF, subcomponent 1.3 will be canceled. A new Component 4 (Support to workers in firms affected by COVID-19) will be introduced to the project, additional funds will be added, and existing project funds will be reallocated across components. The AF will include the following components:Component 1 (Cash support to poor and vulnerable households affected by COVID-19 pandemic)Subcomponent 1.1: Temporary CTs to vulnerable householdsSubcomponent 1.2: Takaful-1 Cash Transfer Program Component 2: Project management, monitoring, and evaluation Component 3: Contingent Emergency Response Component Component 4: Support to workers in firms affected by COVID-19 The new component (Component 4) under the proposed restructured parent project and AF will finance Istidama. MOPIC will implement Component 4 with the SSC as the implementing partner. This component will finance temporary wage subsidies and social security contributions in 2021, covering formal Jordanian workers in eligible private sector firms. The objective is to protect workers while keeping firms solvent and operational. The project will support approximately 100,000 workers. Eligible private sector firms whose formal workers will be supported under the Project are those that: (i) are not authorized to operate (Category 1); (ii) operate in sectors specified by SSC as most affected (Category 2a) or continue to be severely affected by the crisis such as tourism (Category 2b); or (iii) operate in sectors not specified by SSC as severely impacted but can demonstrate they have been considerably affected financially (Category 2c).