Comoros - Shock Responsive and Resilient Social Safety Net Project : Additional Financing

Overview & Synopsis

The development objective of the Additional Financing for the Shock Responsive and Resilient Social Safety Net Project for Comoros is to provide emergency cash transfers and improve the resilience of vulnerable households. The additional financing responds to the economic impacts of the conflict in the Middle East that have raised fuel and food prices, eroded real incomes, and heightened poverty and food insecurity, and it will scale up shock-responsive support while consolidating delivery systems. The operation will expand coverage of emergency social cash transfers to approximately 55,000 poor and climate-vulnerable households using the National Social Registry (NSR), Proxy Means Test (PMT), community validation, and electronic payments through mobile money and bank transfers to ensure timely, transparent, and climate-resilient delivery; these transfers will be complemented by accompanying measures that promote early childhood development, nutrition, school attendance, women’s reproductive health, and financial inclusion, including training on the safe use of mobile money. The operation will also deepen productive inclusion by providing about 3,000 additional households with technical training, coaching, access to savings groups, and livelihood grants to launch or expand income-generating activities with a focus on climate-smart and blue-economy related livelihoods, sequenced after cash transfers to strengthen recovery and resilience. Systems strengthening will include expansion of the NSR to new villages, enhancements to the management information system (MIS), reinforcement of social accountability and the grievance redress mechanism (GRM), and an upgraded communications strategy to clarify eligibility, targeting, and payment arrangements and to mitigate risks linked to mobile money and sexual exploitation and abuse/sexual harassment. The project intends to mitigate welfare losses from price shocks, protect human capital, and build adaptive capacity of women and youth, while improving the efficiency, accountability, and readiness of Comoros’ social protection system for future shocks; to date the project has already reached 291,000 people, delivered cash support to 41,703 households, and supported strong women’s participation across interventions.