Productive Social Assistance Project (WB-P177814)

Countries
  • Lesotho
Geographic location where the impacts of the investment may be experienced.
Financial Institutions
  • World Bank (WB)
International, regional and national development finance institutions. Many of these banks have a public interest mission, such as poverty reduction.
Project Status
Proposed
Stage of the project cycle. Stages vary by development bank and can include: pending, approval, implementation, and closed or completed.
Bank Risk Rating
B
Environmental and social categorization assessed by the development bank as a measure of the planned project’s environmental and social impacts. A higher risk rating may require more due diligence to limit or avoid harm to people and the environment. For example, "A" or "B" are risk categories where "A" represents the highest amount of risk. Results will include projects that specifically recorded a rating, all other projects are marked ‘U’ for "Undisclosed."
Voting Date
Jun 22, 2022
Date when project documentation and funding is reviewed by the Board for consideration and approval. Some development banks will state a "board date" or "decision date." When funding approval is obtained, the legal documents are accepted and signed, the implementation phase begins.
Borrower
Government of Lesotho
A public entity (government or state-owned) provided with funds or financial support to manage and/or implement a project.
Sectors
  • Law and Government
The service or industry focus of the investment. A project can have several sectors.
Investment Type(s)
Grant
The categories of the bank investment: loan, grant, guarantee, technical assistance, advisory services, equity and fund.
Investment Amount (USD)
$ 28.50 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Project Cost (USD)
$ 28.50 million
Value listed on project documents at time of disclosure. If necessary, this amount is converted to USD ($) on the date of disclosure. Please review updated project documents for more information.
Primary Source

Original disclosure @ WB website

Updated in EWS Jun 23, 2022

Disclosed by Bank Oct 24, 2021


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Project Description
If provided by the financial institution, the Early Warning System Team writes a short summary describing the purported development objective of the project and project components. Review the complete project documentation for a detailed description.

According to bank documents, the projective objective is to improve the efficiency and equity of selected social assistance programs and to strengthen the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable households.

The project has four components:

  1. Component 1. This component will support the Government in implementing a package of economic inclusion activities designed to strengthen the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable households. This will be achieved through the provision of additional interventions in selected geographical areas (community councils) designed to provide beneficiaries with the additional resources they need to overcome the constraints they face to increased productivity and income. The package of economic inclusion interventions would include a productive grant, training on entrepreneurship and business skills, life skills, mentorship, and savings. The package will vary depending on the locations selected and will be coordinated with other activities provided by NGOs and exiting health, nutrition and small-holder agriculture projects. The component will also finance assistive devices for people living with disabilities to attend school and access jobs and services.

  2. Component 2. This component provides flexible resources to support temporary expansions of the selected social grant programs in response to shocks. In support of the objective of improved efficiency of select social assistance programs, and in complement to the delivery system investments undertaken in Component 3, this component is designed to provide ear-marked financing for scaling up of shock responsive cash transfers. In combination, Component 3 will support improvements to the systems and processes that facilitate delivery of cash transfers during emergencies (the ‘piping’), while this component provides the liquidity needed to mobilize these responses more efficiently. Evidence has repeatedly shown that prepositioned financing is a fundamental pre-requisite to mobilizing a timely shock response and that without it, social assistance responses tend to arrive late with limited effectiveness. Specifically, this component would support a vertical and horizontal expansion of some cash transfer programs, under certain conditions.

  3. Component 3. In line with ongoing government priorities for the sector, this component will invest in system strengthening to improve efficiency and equity of social assistance. Building from the success of the previous Social Assistance Project, the MoSD sees the continued financing of delivery system strengthening as critical to continually improving the efficiency of social assistance, which represents the primary focus of the NSDP in relation to social protection. Accordingly, this component will strengthen delivery systems with an emphasis on reducing administrative costs, non-transparent and costly processes, and leakages, and on enhancing the ability of programs to target the poor. At the same time, as a subsidiary objective, the investments made with this component are expected to increase the MoSD’s preparedness to respond to shocks, primarily through three avenues: 1) supporting the wider adoption of digital payments which can facilitate the faster delivery of post-shock cash transfers; 2) strengthening the social registry (NISSA) as the primary information system used when increasing coverage in response to shocks; and 3) strengthening interoperability and management information systems. Importantly, the component will also support the ongoing reform of the tertiary bursary program which is both costly and regressive. Performance based conditions will also be used to incentivize results with the government’s social assistance programs as the eligible expenditure program.

  4. Component 4. This component will support the operational costs associated with the implementation of components 1-3. It will also support a small Project Facilitation Unit (PFU), assessments, evaluations, technical assistance, grievance systems, citizen engagement, and capacity building.

Investment Description
Here you can find a list of individual development financial institutions that finance the project.

Contact Information
This section aims to support the local communities and local CSO to get to know which stakeholders are involved in a project with their roles and responsibilities. If available, there may be a complaint office for the respective bank which operates independently to receive and determine violations in policy and practice. Independent Accountability Mechanisms receive and respond to complaints. Most Independent Accountability Mechanisms offer two functions for addressing complaints: dispute resolution and compliance review.

World Bank:
Louise Victoria Monchuk
Senior Economist

Federica Ricaldi
Senior Economist

Borrower:
Kingdom of Lesotho
M'e Nthoateng Lebona
PS
nthoateng.lebona@gov.ls

Implementing Agency:
The Ministry of Social Development (MoSD)
M'e Tsepang Linko
Director Planning
m_linko@yahoo.com 

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

To submit an information request for project information, you will have to create an account to access the Access to Information request form. You can learn more about this process at: https://www.worldbank.org/en/access-to-information/request-submission 

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISM OF THE WORLD BANK

The World Bank Inspection Panel is the independent complaint mechanism and fact-finding body for people who believe they are likely to be, or have been, adversely affected by a World Bank-financed project. If you submit a complaint to the Inspection Panel, they may investigate to assess whether the World Bank is following its own policies and procedures for preventing harm to people or the environment. You can contact the Inspection Panel or submit a complaint by emailing ipanel@worldbank.org. Information on how to file a complaint and a complaint request form are available at: https://www.inspectionpanel.org/how-to-file-complaint 

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How it works