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Ammon News -

The World Bank transferred $45 million in new payments from among the payments of the Emergency Cash Transfer Project for Families and Workers Affected by the Corona Virus Pandemic in Jordan, which is managed by the National Aid Fund (NAF).
By transferring the new payment, the amounts transferred from the Bank to finance the project amount to about $463 million, which have been transferred through successive payments, since the approval of the project in 2020, which committed financing for the project amounting to more than $1billion.

On June 25, 2020, the World Bank approved the first phase of the $374 million project to provide cash assistance to 270,000 poor families in Jordan.

The new transfer of project payments took place in two payments last September, where the first amounted to $5.49 million, and the second amounted to $39.7 million, while other payments were preceded by 3 of them last June, the first with a value of $875,000, and the second with a value of $46 million and the third with a value of $15 million.
While the previous payments were transferred last March in two payments amounting to $48.3 million, and last December in two payments; the first was $38 million, and the second was $70 million.

A previous payment of $65 million was transferred in September of 2021, in addition to a previous payment in August of last year of $91 million, after transferring $43.26 million in December 2020, in addition to other payments that did not exceed each payment is a million dollars.

And in June 2021, the Bank agreed to provide additional financing for a cash transfer project of $290 million, which aims to help families and workers affected by the Corona pandemic, bringing the total value of the project to $664 million, as these payments are disbursed to those affected through the National Aid Fund. .

In March 2022, the World Bank approved a second additional financing of $350 million for the project to continue cash support for the poorest and most needy families and workers in companies most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cash transfers provide money to the poorest and neediest families to help them meet their basic needs so that they can channel what they have into health and education to develop human capital.

The project has made "strong and satisfactory progress" towards achieving its development goal, according to a new World Bank report.

As of last May, the total number of families benefiting from cash transfer programs amounted to 366.576 families out of 400,000 targeted families under the first component of the project, while the number of workers benefiting from wage support under component (4) reached 109,327, compared to 110,000 targeted workers employed In the formal economy, companies have been hit hardest by the pandemic.

Structuring the transfer program

In December 2021, the government began implementing a plan to restructure remittance programs by opening registration for all existing beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, including those who had not previously registered.

In 2022, the government stopped emergency cash transfer programs due to the Corona pandemic, announced the "unified cash transfer program", as the only program for these transfers, and began to re-accredit beneficiaries under the old cash transfer program, in preparation for their transition to the new program.

With the Bank's support, the NAF has improved the targeting formula by using Household Expenditure and Income Survey data to allocate the weights of the indicators that are used to calculate imputed income.

In addition, the NAF has also simplified the benefit calculation formula to enable beneficiaries to better understand and issue payments on a monthly basis.

The government also decided to increase the budget of the new program from JD100 million (about $140 million) to JD140 million (about $200 million).

The number of applicants for the new program reached 412,056 families, of whom 120,000 were selected, while aid was transferred to 119,791 families in the months of January, February and March 2022.

The evaluation report indicated that the NAF showed that the number of registered beneficiaries who had received cash transfers under the cash transfer program had reached 119,791 by March 2022.

And pointed out that the proposed restructuring (at the request of the government on June 7, 2022) requires amending the second additional financing loan agreement for the project, amounting to $350 million, including the number of beneficiaries in the “Takaful 1 program” and the value of the amounts received by each family.

The project also supports the reforms of the social protection system in Jordan, which were strengthened during the pandemic and have become a role model, regionally and globally, in digital transformation, information management systems and social registry. It also opens the way for accessing economic opportunities and achieving economic empowerment.