WASHINGTON, June 29, 2022—The World Bank on June 27 approved an International Development Association (IDA) grant of $30 million to protect Djibouti’s poor and vulnerable communities and to increase resilience to economic shocks.
The Social Protection Emergency Crisis Response Project will provide safety net transfers to households adversely affected by the multiple crises facing the country and strengthen social protection and community resilience mechanisms to respond to future crises.
“Crises often disproportionately impact the most vulnerable people, such as women and children,” said Boubacar-Sid Barry, World Bank Resident Representative in Djibouti. “The new operation supports Djibouti in its efforts to mitigate the repercussions of the war in Ukraine and build a more adaptive social protection system that is vital for vulnerable populations.”
The global impact of the war in Ukraine and the severe drought in Djibouti has caused price increases that disproportionally affect the poorest segments of the population and the livelihoods of thousands of households. It is estimated that about 68,000 households need urgent emergency relief support in rural and urban areas. The project aims to provide emergency safety net transfers to at least 15,000 households and to 2,200 students from rural areas who are currently attending university away from home and cannot afford their upkeep.
“This project will build on the achievements of the Djibouti Integrated Cash Transfers and Human Capital Project which supports the access to the safety net system and quality basic services by the poor communities and encourages households to adopt behaviors that improve human capital outcomes,” said Alex Kamurase, World Bank Task Team Leader for the project. “It aims to expand coverage horizontally—which means covering more people with social protection systems—while increasing households’ resilience to future shocks.”
The project fully supports Djibouti’s ambitious strategy to build a social protection system that integrates different forms of social assistance, including the scaling up of a poverty-targeted cash transfer program, to effectively respond to and facilitate recovery from concomitant crises. It will also finance activities to help communities address emergency and socio- economic challenges at the local level and support institutional capacity building to enhance links between social protection programs and national crises response.
The World Bank in Djibouti
The World Bank’s portfolio in Djibouti consists of 19 projects, worth a total US$436 million in IDA financing. The portfolio focuses on education, health, social safety nets, energy, rural and urban development, modernizing public administration, digital development, strengthening governance and regional infrastructure, and on private sector development, with an emphasis on women and youth.
