The World BankNiger Safety Net Project (P123399)

Regional Vice President: Makhtar Diop Country Director: Soukeyna Kane

Senior Global Practice Director: Michal J. RutkowskiPractice Manager/Manager: Jehan Arulpragasam

Task Team Leader: Carlo Del Ninno

REPORT NO.: RES31851

DOCUMENT OF THE WORLD BANK

RESTRUCTURING PAPER

ON A

PROPOSED PROJECT RESTRUCTURING

OF

NIGER SAFETY NET PROJECT

APPROVED ON MAY 19, 2011

TO

REPUBLIC OF NIGER

SOCIAL PROTECTION & LABOR

AFRICA

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The World BankNiger Safety Net Project (P123399)

I. BASIC DATA

Product Information

Project ID Financing Instrument

P123399 Investment Project Financing

Original EA Category Current EA Category

Partial Assessment (B) Partial Assessment (B)

Approval Date Current Closing Date

19-May-2011 30-Jun-2019

Organizations

Borrower Responsible Agency

Republic of Niger Cellule Filets Sociaux, Cabinet du Premier Ministre

Project Development Objective (PDO)

Original PDO

The project development objective (PDO) is to establish and support an effective safety net system which will increase access of poor and food insecure people to cash transfer and cash for work programs.

Current PDO

The project development objective is to establish and support an effective and adaptive safety net system that will increase access of poor and vulnerable people to cash transfer and cash for work programs.

Summary Status of Financing

Ln/Cr/Tf Approval Signing Effectiveness ClosingNet

Commitment Disbursed Undisbursed

IDA-D1130 07-Apr-2016 15-Apr-2016 26-Jun-2016 30-Jun-2019 22.50 14.04 8.99

IDA-49200 19-May-2011 14-Jul-2011 11-Oct-2011 30-Jun-2017 68.32 62.91 0

TF-A2304 07-Apr-2016 15-Apr-2016 28-Jun-2016 30-Jun-2018 8.50 5.02 3.48

The World BankNiger Safety Net Project (P123399)

Policy Waiver(s)

Does this restructuring trigger the need for any policy waiver(s)?No

II. SUMMARY OF PROJECT STATUS AND PROPOSED CHANGES

The project overall performance remains satisfactory at the time of the March 2018 supervision mission. The overall disbursement rate as of April 24, 2018, was 82.44 percent (97 percent on IDA 4920-NE, 50 percent on IDA D1130 and 57 percent on TF-A2304 trust funds). The project is on track to achieve its development objective. So far it has made substantial progress in the achievement of its key results indicators, which have already been met or exceeded. The total number of beneficiaries covered since the beginning of the project in all 8 regions of Niger has reached approximately 1,085,000 people (51 percent women). The World Bank provides technical support and financial resources to the Government of Niger to establish and support an effective and adaptive safety nets system that will increase access of poor and vulnerable people to cash transfers and cash for work programs. These activities contribute to making households more responsive to shocks, build human capital for young children, promote resilience, and foster more productive income-generating activities. The project is also supported by the Adaptive Social Protection Program, which supports a range of related analytical activities on poverty and vulnerability, new tools and instruments for resilience, learning from innovative approaches and impact evaluations.

Under the Adaptive Social Protection Program an emergency cash transfers was scheduled for 5,000 households. This shock responsive program was first tested in 2016 in Diffa region which is affected by the attacks from Boko Haram. The region is under pressure from both the refugees and returnees from northern Nigeria and internally displaced population fleeing insecurity due to Boko Haram attacks. In response to the request from the Government of Niger, 2,456 households received an emergency cash transfers in Diffa. In, 2017, the program was extended to the region of Agadez to benefit 2,500 households located in the northern regions impacted by the insecurity from Mali. The Cash for work (CfW) activities are ongoing. Within the second phase of CfW 2017, 24 micro-project proposals were developed for the benefit of 25 villages. Out of these 24 proposals, ten (10) are socio-economic infrastructure micro-projects (class construction, housing for teachers, grain banks, cattle feed banks, health center fences, schools). The finalization of the process of land securing for the work sites and their development is also ongoing. To promote the development of the human capital of children from poorest households, the safety nets project has supported the implementation of the behavioral accompanying measures as part of the cash transfers component. By March 2018, the training on "Pregnancy, Childbirth and Spacing of Births" was delivered in all the villages. The productive inclusion agenda is also ongoing: five out of the seven support packages planned are being implemented including (a) coaching, (b) facilitation of VSLA groups, (c) community sensitization on aspirations and social norms, (d) life skills training and (e) Basic business management skills training. The first wave of cash injection is scheduled for May 2018.

Regarding the institutional support to the National Institution for the Prevention and Management of Food Crisis (Dispositif National de Prevention et de Gestion des Crises Alimentaires DNPGCA or DN), the World Bank organized a large consultation of all the stakeholders to reach an agreement on the terms of reference (TOR) to conduct a diagnostic on the information system available at the Dispositif level and to help refining the World bank support. This support aims to assist the DN in setting up an information management center within the Permanent Secretariat, which ensures both the management of information on crisis situations and the monitoring and evaluation of all the

The World BankNiger Safety Net Project (P123399)

activities of the DNPGCA and social safety net programs. To conduct such diagnostic an international consultant plus two national consultants will be hired by the beginning of September for six months.

The World Bank also provides support to the Government on the implementation of a Unified Social Registry (USR). To achieve this goal, an international consultant has been recruited in February 2017 by the World Bank. He built on the work already done within the informal working group which included the main stakeholders. A harmonized questionnaire was build considering a minimum set of variables required to implement both HEA and PMT targeting methodologies. This questionnaire was already tested by the Safety Nets Project on more than 100,000 households. A clear roadmap and a detailed action plan were provided by the consultant to allow the implementation of the USR within the next two years. Recently (April 2018), the Government has drafted two decrees to set up the technical working group and the Steering Committee on USR.

In addition, large-scale evaluations have documented the effectiveness of the project in facilitating savings and investments, promoting parenting practices for early childhood development, as well as its targeting performance: (a) Impact evaluation on cash transfers and resilience; (b) Impact evaluation report on the value-added of behavioral accompanying measures to the cash transfer project; (c) Impact evaluation of cash transfers and productive inclusion; (d) Impact evaluation on cash for work component; (e) a prospective targeting assessment; and (f) a price study. Finally, the World Bank launched in April 2018 a Public Expenditure Review on Social Protection (PER). The objective of this activity is to contribute to generating the information on the financing structure of SPJ spending in Niger that policy makers need in formulating policies towards improving efficiency of existing spending and in improving fiscal sustainability of the SPL system. In 2017, a data collection for the Atlas of Social protection indicators (ASPIRE) was conducted with the objective of improving SPL data quality comparability and availability across all countries to better inform the design of SPL policies, programs, and systems. The review was completed in April 2017 and will inform the PER.

As per the request from the Government of Niger dated March 30, 2018, the proposed restructuring aims to: (a) extend the closing date of TF0A2304 to June 30, 2019 to be in line with the extension of the Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program closing date; and (b) reallocate funds between disbursement categories. By the end of April 2018, almost 83 percent of the project resources of US$101 million have been spent and the rest have been committed as of March 2018. This initial resource programming was done considering the initial closing date of the ASP MDTF which was June 2018. The extension of this closing date to June 2019 will allow the safety nets project to continue performing its activities. Indeed, the proposed reallocation will allow performing: (a) the productive accompanying measures till the end of 2018; (b) implementing cash transfer, cash for work and accompanying measures; (c) ensuring the project to reach its performance indicators and to continue its normal activities till the new safety nets project becomes effective in early 2019. This extension and reallocation will allow the project to reach all expected results.

III. DETAILED CHANGES

LOAN CLOSING DATE(S)

The World BankNiger Safety Net Project (P123399)

Ln/Cr/Tf StatusOriginal Closing

Revised Closing(s)

Proposed Closing

Proposed Deadline for Withdrawal

Applications

IDA-49200 Closed 30-Jun-2017 17-May-2018

IDA-D1130 Effective 30-Jun-2019

TF-A2304 Effective 30-Jun-2018 30-Jun-2019 30-Oct-2019

REALLOCATION BETWEEN DISBURSEMENT CATEGORIES

Ln/Cr/TFCurrent Expenditure Category

Current Allocation

Actuals + Committed

Proposed Allocation

Disbursement %(Type Total)

Current Proposed

IDA-D1130-001Currency:XDR

OP COTS, GD, WRK, NCS, CONSULT, TR

7,400,000.00 3,871,942.23 6,500,000.00 100.00 100.00

GD/WRK/CONS/TR/OC PART 1.2/2.2

2,100,000.00 1,471,402.36 3,000,000.00 66.00 66.00

CASH TRANSFER PART 2.1

4,900,000.00 2,458,119.92 4,900,000.00 100.00 100.00

GD/CS/NCS/RISK CASH TRANS P 2.3

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.10 0.10

CASH FOR WORK PART 3

1,900,000.00 926,719.04 1,900,000.00 32.00 32.00

Total 16,300,000.00 8,728,183.55 16,300,000.00

TF-A2304-001Currency:USD

OP COTS, GD, WRK, NCS, CONSULT, TR

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.10 0.10

GD/WRK/CONS/TR/OC PART 1.2/2.2

1,500,000.00 1,023,611.50 2,000,000.00 34.00 34.00

CASH TRANSFER PART 2.1

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.10 0.10

The World BankNiger Safety Net Project (P123399)

GD/CS/NCS/RISK CASH TRANS P 2.3

1,250,000.00 913,491.08 1,250,000.00 100.00 100.00

CASH FOR WORK PART 3

5,750,000.00 2,727,185.90 5,250,000.00 68.00 68.00

Total 8,500,000.00 4,664,288.48 8,500,000.00