Sudan Family Support Project

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The Government of Sudan (GoS) is responding to urgent needs to stabilize the economy and begin a long process of clearing arrears to MFIs as part of the Sudan’s larger macroeconomic stabilization and integration. These measures are expected to include exchange rate liberalization/unification and reallocation of public resources away from commodity subsidies, tax exemptions, towards social and development needs. These fiscal adjustments are expected to contribute to furthering an already deteriorating economic situation in Sudan which has impacted vulnerable people’s abilities to cover basic needs. These challenges facing households are compounded by the economic shutdown recently imposed to mitigate the effects of the Corona Virus pandemic (COVID 19) in some regions of Sudan. Accordingly, the GoS has requested support from the donor community to establish the Sudan Family Support Program (SFSP) to provide cash transfers to 80 percent of the population, i.e., to about 32.5 million individuals, with an annual cost of US $1.9 billion. The SFSP would continue for up to two years, depending on financing availability. The GoS will contribute its own budget to the SFSP, particularly as the program enters later phases and transitions to the longer-term support to permanent social safety nets. The project’s development objective is to deliver cash transfer support to Sudanese households affected by expected economic reforms and other short-term shocks. To this end, the project includes three components. These are: Component 1, Provision of Cash Transfers, to provide cash transfers to selected households; Component 2, Establish Delivery Systems and Build Institutional Capacity; and Component 3, Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Learning.The project will support the first phase of the government program, providing cash transfers during the startup period of the program. The project would provide cash transfers of $5 per person per month to 5.5 million people in 1.1 million families for a total cost of US$350 million for the transfers. This phase will prepare for later expansion to a full program, depending on lessons learned and resources available. The plan for the full-fledged program is to provide cash transfers of $5 per person per month to approximately 80 percent of the population, i.e. 32.5 million people for an annual cost of $1,950 million. The first phase will build on lessons from the pilot initiated in July 2020, and will support the development of building blocks necessary for establishment of a more effective social Safety Net system in Sudan. Specific focus during this phase will be on transforming the existing institutional and administrative structures to consolidate permanent institutional arrangements in order to design, implement and monitor the social safety net as well as support informed decision making in the context of the national social protection framework. The first states and subsequent scale up will consider issues of; (i) poverty head count; (ii) existing implementation capacity of safety nets programs; (ii) payment infrastructure and (iv) presence or absence of UN agencies in those states and (v) rural/urban consideration or a combination of all these factors. Based on these factors, it is recommended that phase 1 project implementation will start in the states of (i)Khartoum, (ii) Red Sea; (iii) South Darfur and (iv) Kassala. Based on the external resource flows the design of the second phase will start immediately after the delivery of the first phase.