Shock Responsive and Resilient Social Safety Net Project

active

The Project Development Objective (PDO) of the project is to provide emergency cash transfers and improve the resilience of vulnerable households. The project builds on the involvement of the World Bank in social protection and emergency response in Comoros for the past decade, and benefits from ongoing engagement through the COVID-19 response. The proposed project has immediate and medium-term objectives. The project has 4 components.Component 1: Ensuring Immediate Response to Shock (9.50 millions USD)Component 1 will provide Social Cash Transfer (SCTs) to support poor and vulnerable households avoid a significant erosion of their living conditions and human capital, given the adverse effects of decreasing purchasing power and consumption. The component will support the vertical expansion of the Social Safety Net program (P150754) in areas where they are operational and horizontal scale-up to new beneficiaries. A combination of geographical, community-based and Proxy-Means Targeting (PMT) mechanisms will be used in a complementary way to identify beneficiaries and minimize exclusion and inclusion errors. Validation of enrolled beneficiaries will be done through community visits, processing of potential complaints, and public meetings. For the targeting process, tools and monitoring systems will be prepared in advance, and the project will be assisted by external consultants and NGO. The payment system will use mobile money whenever possible, and communication will also be strengthened throughout the program. Activity implementation under this component will be supported by accompanying measures (AM) and community mobilization. AM are designed to encourage early childhood development, human capital development (education, health, nutrition), women’s empowerment, etc. Component 2: Establishing economic opportunities– US$16.5 million equivalent. This second component aims to provide economic opportunities and support job creation for the most vulnerable households and strengthen their resilience. This component has two sub-components: (i) livelihood and income generating activities (ii) cash-for-work for resilience program,.Sub-component 2.1: Supporting livelihood and income generating activities. This activity targets poor and vulnerable households and aims to contribute to their economic and financial autonomy and stronger resilience by creating jobs. This sub-component will provide beneficiaries with conditional productive funding to invest in eligible income-generating activities of their choice, along with technical training to build their capacity as well as AM. Beneficiaries will be provided with the necessary skills and support to develop their income-generating activities and ensure they meet the conditions for livelihood grants. Technical training will also be provided throughout the entire duration of the program; this will provide beneficiaries with skills specifically relevant to their chosen field of activity (e.g., modern methods of planting, farming, organic composting, etc.). Throughout the program, targeted households will be supported through AM. Beneficiaries will participate in sensitization sessions and receive nudges on self-confidence and planning. They will be trained on the following themes: Financial literacy; Citizen governance; Wash, nutrition, sanitary and health practices, early childhood development; Youth reproductive health (fight against teenage pregnancies, abortion); Fight against HIV-AIDS; Sex education and fam ily planning; Gender-based violence (GBV); Marketing and processing; Business plan; green economy and Livelihood diversification. Households will also benefit from coaching providing them with advice and recommendations regarding their chosen activity. Disabled households will receive accompanying measures and technical training which will be customized to their disability. The program will also enhance early childhood development through AM and mother leaders. The program will be led in the community by mother leaders and father leaders who will help mothers from beneficiary families learn and apply effective parent-child interaction and nutrition practices. Sub-component 2.2: Cash for work for resilience. This sub-component will provide employment to unskilled and semi-skilled workers on labor intensive interventions, support beneficiaries with additional income to meet their immediate needs while building their skills, generate community assets for local development and further address food insecurity. The works carried out under this sub-component will provide public goods such as improved productive infrastructure for landscape management, the prevention of soil degradation, and reforestation, which will yield public benefits for the communities. Only labor-intensive activities that are of common public interest or that benefit the whole community are eligible under this sub-component. This sub-component will not finance infrastructure for private, administrative, political, or religious purposes; projects planned to be financed by other programs; and projects that might cause involuntary displacement or income loss for any group of people. This subcomponent will allow local communities to undertake activities that are centered on climate change adaptation and resilience building at community level. Those activities will focus on biotechnology, waste treatment and recycling, tree or fruit tree nurseries, water security improvement, soil erosion reduction, reforestation, small construction projects to improve productive capacity or water infiltration and storage, and livelihood diversification. Projects under this sub-component will also include agricultural works that will promote adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices. This program will provide economic and training opportunities to vulnerable households in poor areas where there is a potential to increase local agricultural production. Component 3: Strengthening safety net coordination, project management, monitoring and evaluation – US$4 million equivalentSub-component 3.1: Building institutional capacity. The proposed sub-component ensures continuity of technical and institutional capacity building of the relevant departments of the GoC. Capacity building will include, but will not be limited to, transfer of capacity and knowledge, further supporting the government in its effort to establish a social registry, development of safety net delivery systems which include operational procedure for registration, enrolment, targeting, registering grievances, payment delivery, community outreach, monitoring, and impact evaluation. This subcomponent will enhance the institutional framework and facilitate policy dialogue, as well as enhance coordination across relevant sectors. This will include support to the social protection committee and establishment of the National Social Protection Strategy. It will also support enhancement of the legal and institutional framework of the social protection sector in ComorosSub-component 3.2: Project management, monitoring and evaluation. This sub-component will finance all project management costs, including implementation and monitoring of E&S risk management and the implementation and strengthening of social accountability mechanisms and the project Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) .Component 4: Contingency Emergency Response Component (CERC). Following an eligible crisis or emergency, the Borrower may request the Bank to re-allocate uncommitted project funds to support emergency response. This component will allow for rapid reallocation of credit and grant uncommitted funds in the event of an eligible emergency as defined in the World Bank Operational Policy.