World Bank funds social protection project

Plan to empower capacity of local stakeholders

The World Bank is currently preparing a new social development project for Lebanon. The Social Promotion and Protection Project (SPPP) project has a total cost of $196 million. The World Bank Group will secure $30 million through a loan from its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The loan is expected to be approved around mid-May. The rest of the project funding will be secured by the Government.

The SPPP aims to increase access to social development services at the community level, and build the capacity of the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA).

The project will act through four main components: Social Development Centers (SDCs), a Community Social Development Program (CSD), a National Poverty Targeting Program (NPTP), and a Project Coordination Team.

The SDCs component has a budget of $9.1 million, fully funded through the loan. Its objective is to enhance the administrative and operational capacity of the SDCs. This includes equipping, automating, and electronically linking the centers to the MoSA, as well as building and empowering the human resources of the centers.

The CSD has a budget of $12.5 million, almost all of which is funded by the loan. This part of the project aims to establish a transparent, accountable, and efficient national program that will finance community-based sub-projects through grants. Grant sizes are limited to $50,000 and they will be targeting areas of greater poverty and vulnerable groups, like the handicapped.

The NPTP was launched by the Government in 2011 and has a total cost of $172.8 million, of which only $6.7 million will be financed by the loan. The World Bank now aims to expand the coverage of the NPTP from approximately 100,300 individual beneficiaries to around 238,700 by 2018.

The last component is the Project Coordination Team (PCT). It costs $2.1 million, of which $1.9 million will be funded through the loan. The objective is to build a team that will be responsible for overall project coordination, including procurement, financial management, and internal audit. The PCT will serve for the whole duration of the project.