WB to extend additional dlrs 500m to expand Egypt’s social safety net

03 / 07 / 2019

By Marwa Nassar - - -

The World Bank will extend an additional 500 million dollars to support ongoing Egyptian efforts to expand its social safety net.

This additional finance will help Egypt to run the program for three more years in order to help more poor people to improve their conditions.

The Takaful and Karama program is among Egypt’s largest investments in human capital development. The social safety net program was launched in 2015 with the support of a dlrs 400 million World Bank program. The Takaful and Karama program is implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity and has covered to date 2.26 million households which amounts to approximately 9.4 million individuals, or approximately 10% of Egypt’s population. About 88 percent of the beneficiaries of the program are women.

The Takaful and Karama Program is closely aligned with the World Bank’s recently launched Human Capital Project, which is built on the belief that investing in people through nutrition, health care, quality education, jobs and skills is key to ending extreme poverty and creating more inclusive societies. The Human Capital project aims to build demand for more and better investments in people, help countries strengthen their human capital strategies and investments for rapid improvements in outcomes, and improve how human capital is measured.

“Takaful’’ or ‘’Solidarity’’ provides conditional family income support aimed at increasing food consumption, reducing poverty while encouraging families to keep children in school and providing them with needed health care. Along with ensuring vulnerable families receive basic nutrition, the goal is to build the ‘human capital’ of the next generation and give them a path out of poverty. The program is ‘conditional’, meaning that households receive a monthly transfer of 325 Egyptian Pounds providing they are compliant with certain clearly defined requirements. These include all household children ages 6 to 18 having at least an 80% school attendance record, four visits per year to health clinics by mothers and children below the age of 6, maintaining child growth monitoring records, and attending nutrition awareness sessions.

Households are given additional support for every 0-6 years old child (60 EGP) primary student (80 EGP), preparatory stage students (100 EGP) and Secondary stage students (140 EGP). The program covers a maximum of 3 children per household and recertifies beneficiaries every 3 years. There are 1,962,785 households enrolled in Takaful (which amount to approximately 8,341,836 individuals or 87% of the program’s total households).

The ‘’Dignity’’ or ‘’Karama’’ part of the program aims to protect Egypt’s poor elderly citizens above 65 years of age and citizens with severe disabilities and diseases as well as orphans. These vulnerable citizens receive a monthly pension of 450 EGP with no ‘conditions’. The original pension amount was 350 EGP but recently got increased to 450 EGP to enable beneficiaries to cope with price hikes. A new functional disability assessment model has been rolled out across Egypt, moving away from a purely medical approach to disability to a more rights-based model, to determine Karama eligibility. Karama beneficiaries, have reached 306,016 households (which amount to approximately 1,300,568 individuals or 13% of the program’s total households.) Out of Karama beneficiaries, 52,338 (17%) are elderly, 252,338 (82%) are disabled and 1,668(1%) are both elderly and disabled.

Of the households enrolled in the Takaful and Karama program, 1,998,280 are headed by women (or 88% of all households), while 270,521 are headed by men (or 12%).

Capitalizing on the Takaful and Karama database, the Ministry of Social Solidarity is linking beneficiaries to other integrated packages of social protection services and programs, such as “Two is enough’’ program which is implemented in cooperation with Ministry of Health and Population and targets families who have two children to stop at two, through availing subsidized access to birth control and awareness raising.

Also, the “No illiteracy with Takaful” program focuses on eradicating illiteracy for Takaful women beneficiaries in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Technical Education.

“Sakan Kareem” or Decent Housing program is implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities as well as civil society organizations focusing on improving home conditions for the very poor/vulnerable households under the program; including roofing, flooring, and water connections.

“First 1000 days program” is implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity in collaboration with the World Food Program. It focuses on the ‘first 1000 days of life’ of an infant as it is a critical period for brain development, body growth and having a strong immune system. The program targets the health and nutritional status of mothers and infants in the under developed governorates of Upper Egypt through providing access to nutritious food baskets at 94 EGP per month.

The Forsa or ‘‘Opportunity” program, which is currently under expansion and targets the Takaful and Karama database. The program focuses on economic empowerment through diverse economic inclusion interventions (such as job placement, asset transfer, training and skills development).

Based on the success of the program to date, the government is considering consolidation of the Takaful and Karama program to increase the operation’s efficacy through putting more emphasis on implementing and monitoring education and health conditionality to ensure that the transfers are directed to those who are truly in need. There are also plans to focus on moving from ‘’protection’’ to ‘’production’’, meaning that it will work to expedite the beneficiaries’ graduation from the program through enabling them to generate their own sustainable livelihoods.