WASHINGTON, USA, June 26, 2023 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/- The World Bank today approved $100 million in International Development Association (IDA*) financing. This funding supports Togo’s efforts to increase the coverage of its new social safety net program and strengthen its interoperable social benefit systems.
The Transformative Social Assistance for Resilience in Togo (ASTRE) program will extend its cash transfer coverage to all households identified as extremely poor, with a focus on women, to boost their resilience and break the cycle of inherited poverty through targeted investments in human capital. This program aims to lift 1.24 million people out of poverty by 2029.
“The program consolidates Togo’s overall position as an innovative country, which promotes economic transformation and inclusion through the design and delivery of social protection programs,” explain Fily Sissoko, World Bank Resident Representative for Togo. “This is the first Program for Results (PforR) in Togo, a sign of the maturity of the systems for implementing and monitoring complex programs and policies by the government”, he points out.
A PforR uses a country’s own institutions and processes and directly links the disbursement of funds to the achievement of specific program results.
The ASTRE program has ambitious and transformative objectives: it will support the government’s deployment of 100% coverage of extremely poor populations (i.e. 1.8 million people) eligible for cash transfers. The program will also provide a shock response to some 250,000 households vulnerable to conflict, climate, or health shocks. In addition, it will also provide access to health information and measures in favor of financial literacy.
“The program aims to smooth household consumption, diversifying livelihoods and providing a pathway to increase incomes as well as resilience to climate shock,” reports Christian Bodewig, Sector Manager for Social Protection and Employment at the World Bank.
The ASTRE program will support government efforts to leverage recent innovations in service delivery systems, establishing an interoperable social information system (SISI) that ensures data protection, privacy and security measures. cybersecurity. The system is based first of all on the inclusive and unique identification of all people living in the territory. In a second step, a universal campaign of census and registration of poor and vulnerable households within an evolving social register will support the assessment of needs and conditions for eligibility to social safety nets, using data up-to-date, provided with informed consent. Third, a multi-program, multi-vendor payment platform will directly transfer profits from the Treasury to the mobile money accounts of designated beneficiaries. Finally, the system will contribute to the development of a data laboratory, to design evidence-based policies and ensure rigorous monitoring and evaluation.
The digital financial inclusion of women is central to the design of this program. Building on the lessons learned from the Novissi emergency cash transfer program, and also on the previous Social safety nets and basic services project funded by IDA, incentives are provided to designate women as beneficiaries from poor and vulnerable households. “This flagship social protection program is expected to create the conditions to close the gender gap in poverty reduction, financial inclusion, and mobile device ownership,” underline Tina Georges, Senior Social Protection Specialist and Task Manager at the World Bank. “The ASTRE program will strengthen women’s decision-making power and their independence. »
* The International Development Association (IDA) is the World Bank institution that helps the world‘s poorest countries. Founded in 1960, IDA aims to reduce poverty by providing loans (called “credits”) and grants for programs that stimulate economic growth, reduce inequality and improve living conditions. IDA is a leading donor to the world‘s 76 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Its resources concretely benefit 1.6 billion people. Since its inception, IDA has supported development activities in 113 countries. The annual volume of its commitments is constantly increasing and has averaged $21 billion over the past three years, with around 61% of this amount going to Africa.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) for World Bank.
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Source : African Media Agency (AMA)