Social Protection and Youth Productive Inclusion Project

The objective of the Lisungi Emergency COVID-19 Response Project for Congo is to provide emergency income support to households affected by the COVID-19 health and economic crisis and increase access to safety net for recovery for poor and vulnerable in participating areas of the Beneficiary. The Project has five components. 1. Emergency cash transfers for COVID-19 response component has two subcomponents. 1.1. Emergency cash transfers subcomponent will finance one-off emergency cash transfers to approximately 200,000 households likely to be affected by the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis during the lockdown. 1.2. Communications and sensitization campaign subcomponent will finance a communication and sensitization campaign to provide poor and vulnerable households with information about key program characteristics and COVID-19 prevention messages. 2. Scaling up Lisungi program for recovery component will provide households affected by the economic crisis with support to Income-Generating Activities integrated into the regular Lisungi Cash Transfer program to help them rebuild their assets and strengthen resilience once the acute phase of the pandemic recedes. 3. Strengthening the social protection system component will focus on four priority areas: (a) support to the elaboration of a social protection strategy, (b) expansion of the RSU, (c) adoption of electronic payments and (d) support to improve the capacity of delivery systems to respond to shocks and crisis. 4. Project management, monitoring and evaluation (M and E) component will support project management. 5. Contingency Emergency Response Component will allow the Government to quickly reallocate and mobilize funds in the event of an emergency that would require immediate recovery and reconstruction needs, and are not already covered by the Project.