World Bank expands
ESSN support by $300 million

Number of beneficiaries to increase from 82,000 to 160,000

The World Bank Group has approved a $300 million additional financing for the Emergency Crisis and COVID-19 Response Social Safety Net Project (ESSN – also known as AMAN).

The additional funding will expand the number of beneficiaries from 82,000 to 160,000 households. Each household will receive on a monthly basis $25, in addition to $20 per household member for up to six members for 24 months.

The funding will also benefit 92,000 students, 13 to 18 years old, from the beneficiary households and registered in public schools. Each student will receive between $285 and $425 depending on school grades, paid directly to the household. The academic performance of students benefiting from the cash assistance will be monitored by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE). Payment information will be communicated to the recipient households via SMS. Benefits are redeemed in dollar through mobile transfer operators.

The ESSN additional financing will also support increased access to quality social services provided by the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA) for 400,000 individuals and will provide capacity building activities to social workers. The project is jointly implemented by the MoSA and the Presidency Council of Ministers. World Food Program (WFP) will carry out eligibility verification visits and payments of the cash transfers.

“The additional financing will expand and extend the provision of cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households in Lebanon and further support the development of a unified social safety net delivery system to allow a better response to ongoing and future shocks,” said a statement by the World Bank. Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Middle East Country Director, said: “The financing will also facilitate the integration of existing SSN programs into a unified program in line with the Government’s vision articulated in the National Social Protection Strategy, and ensure simplification of implementation, reduce fragmentation and duplication, and promote efficiency and effectiveness of SSN spending.”

The package is a second additional financing to the ESSN project ($246 million) originally approved in January 2021 to address the impact of the economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic on the poor and vulnerable population. The project already benefited from a first additional financing of $4 million in May 2022. “Going forward, Lebanon would need to secure the fiscal space needed to finance social protection needs, including social safety nets, over the long term,” said the World Bank.

The additional financing will continue to support the development of DAEM Social Registry to an integrated Social Protection Information System (SPIS) as per the needs of the government. ESSN had set the foundations of a poverty-targeted social safety net system through the establishment of DAEM, a digitized national social registry. DAEM has facilitated cash transfers to approximately 82,000 households facing extreme poverty and social vulnerability over a period of 14 months. ESSN has also recruited Third-Party Monitoring agents to verify eligibility and confirm due payments to beneficiary households. A post distribution monitoring survey revealed that after receiving the transfers, the largest share of beneficiary household spending was on food (43 percent of spending), followed by healthcare (12 percent).