Enhancing the Social Protection System to Better Serve Vulnerable Populations

I. Context

Tunisia is facing a challenging economic situation that affects its population, particularly the most vulnerable. Tunisia’s economic growth has been limited since 2011 – GDP growth was 1.7 percent between 2011 and 2019, compared to 3.5 percent growth between 2000 and 2011. Tunisia’s GDP is still below its pre-pandemic levels with 0.4 percent GDP growth in 2023 due to the fourth consecutive year of below-average rainfall, which compromised Tunisia’s agricultural production and slowed down further an already limited economic recovery. Consequently, macroeconomic indicators such as unemployment, inflation, and poverty levels have declined. The unemployment rate stood at 16.4 percent as of the fourth quarter of 2023, while food inflation was 10.2 percent in March 2024, particularly affecting households with lower incomes. Economic growth had been pro-poor from 2000 to 2015, resulting in a decline in poverty levels from 25.4 percent to 15.2 percent. However, this previous positive trend reversed recently as the poverty rate increased from 15.2 percent in 2015 to 16.6 percent in 2021 partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The World Bank’s Tunisia Country Partnership Framework CPF FY (2023-27) is supporting the Government of Tunisia to tackle the abovementioned challenges, notably by strengthening the country’s human capital and the resilience of households to shocks through a stronger social protection system.

The AMEN Social Program – Tunisia’s flagship social protection program – continues to provide comprehensive assistance to the most vulnerable. The Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), through AMEN, provides monthly cash transfers to over 333,000 poor households (over 10 percent of the total population). The households are targeted using a proxy-means test (PMT) methodology that evaluates multi-dimensional poverty. Supplemental monthly cash transfers are delivered to support over 148,000 vulnerable children under the age of six as well as annual transfers before specific holidays and to households with school-aged children before the start of the school year. AMEN also provides free medical services to the same 333,000 poor households and subsidized medical services to an additional 620,000 low-income households. AMEN beneficiaries are also eligible for grants to start or expand small businesses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the AMEN Program facilitated the distribution of emergency cash transfers to approximately 900,000 low-income households, alleviating the economic shocks of the sanitary crisis. The AMEN Program not only serves as an effective tool to alleviate poverty, but it is also redistributive, helping to reduce inequality levels in Tunisia.

II. World Bank Support

The World Bank has been supporting Tunisia’s social protection system, particularly the AMEN Social Program, since 2014. From 2014 to 2019, the World Bank supported the design of the AMEN Social Program, which replaced the PNAFN Program, becoming the main pillar of Tunisia’s social protection system. Since 2020, US$700 million in financing has been facilitated through a first loan in 2021 followed by a second loan in 2022 to provide emergency cash support to poor and vulnerable households affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to increase AMEN’s monthly cash transfers coverage from 260,000 to 310,000 beneficiary households – representing 10% of the country’s population. This financing also extended the family allowance program cash to around 120,000 children who are under the age of six plus supported enhancements to better target and identify poor households, allocating limited resources more efficiently. The overall aim is to strengthen Tunisia’s human capital and to break the cycle of poverty across generations.

Since 2014, holistic technical assistance provided is improving the overall functioning of the social protection system, leading to better and more integrated services. Through the GovTech Project, important progress has been achieved to digitalize social protection services and place beneficiaries at the center of these services. The World Bank is also supporting the sector’s digital transformation, including through the interoperability of government databases plus the introduction of digital health cards for AMEN’s health services. The US$700 million loan has supported improvements to the operations of AMEN, including through an enhanced grievance and redress management system and a strengthened management information system. The US$11.7 million Social Protection and Legal Aid (SPLA) Project, implemented in collaboration with UNDP, was initiated in 2022 through an inception phase, followed by the first phase of implementation in 2023. This innovative project is enabling the establishment of a case management system, which will allow social workers to provide multiple services, including legal aid. The SPLA Project is also reinforcing the delivery chain of the AMEN Program by digitizing and simplifying procedures, procuring essential equipment, strengthening the management information system, enhancing two-way communication channels with beneficiaries, and facilitating capacity-building and knowledge sharing.

III. Overall Achievements

The reformed AMEN Social Program came into effect in 2019, enhancing assistance to vulnerable populations during the last challenging years. Since then, the Program has expanded from 265,000 households receiving monthly cash transfers and free healthcare services to over 333,000 households benefiting from these advantages, representing more than 10% of Tunisia’s population. Subsidized health care is provided to an additional 620,000 households – approximately 30% of the Tunisian population is supported with their healthcare needs. Temporary cash transfers were distributed in 2021 to 896 657 households registered in the AMEN Program to mitigate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The registration and distribution of these emergency cash transfers were carried out through a fully digital approach for the first time, preventing the spread of COVID-19 and accelerating the Program’s digitalization. The supplemental monthly allowance for children under six years has been institutionalized, improving children’s nutrition, increasing scalarization levels, and reducing household stress levels. The positive impact of the children allowance has led to the preparation for a potential expansion to support all children up to 18 years of age.

The AMEN Social Program is being reformed and modernized to better serve its hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries. A significant proportion (44.4%) of the cash transfers as part of the AMEN Program have been digitalized, making payments easier and reducing costs. A convention has been signed between the MoSA and the Tunisian Post to continue providing AMEN beneficiaries with digital payment cards tied to an e-wallet, furthering financial inclusion. The targeting of the AMEN program is being finetuned through improvements to the social registry plus the introduction of the unique identifier and the PMT approach, ensuring that the right households are assisted and that limited resources are well employed. The interoperability of platforms among government agencies has been facilitated and the management information system has been strengthened, speeding the beneficiary application process and improving the verification of eligibility criteria. These improvements are already having a tangible effect as 62,000 free healthcare cards were reallocated from households that were not eligible for these benefits to eligible households in December 2023.

IV. TERI Support

Building on the existing efforts and achievements, the Tunisia Economic and Resilience (TERI) Umbrella Trust Fund is providing additional support to further strengthen the AMEN Social Program. This technical assistance is being carried out in collaboration with UNDP to establish a case management system and reinforce access to legal aid and social services for poor and vulnerable populations through a dual approach: strengthening legal aid mechanisms and implementing an integrated social delivery system. TERI’s support is composed of five components: i) supporting organization and information systems, ii) improving working conditions for social workers to strengthen the legal aid offer, iii) improving communication and information for vulnerable populations, iv) providing knowledge, sharing and capacity-building activities, and v) project management and coordination. This multi-year technical assistance was launched in 2023 and is expected to continue until 2026. The objective is to strengthen the supply and demand for legal aid by building an efficient transparent and targeted social registry, while also reinforcing the provision of legal aid as an essential social service for the most vulnerable to combat multi-dimensional poverty.

V. Next Steps

The World Bank will continue to support the Tunisian social protection system in general, and the AMEN Social Program in particular, to ensure that the most vulnerable are not left behind. The World Bank is supporting the Center for Social Research and Studies (CRES), an agency under the MoSA, to further finetune the PMT formula to continue improving AMEN’s targeting as well as to collaborate with academia to promote research on social protection. The Program’s operational procedures continue to be reviewed and improved, with additional training sessions for social workers across the country planned. The management information system is also in the process of being enhanced, particularly regarding the interoperability with additional databases and systems of other government agencies to strengthen the Program’s accountability by accelerating the daily verifications carried out by social workers. The World Bank will also work together with UNDP to support the MoSA and the Ministry of Justice to extend and improve legal aid to vulnerable populations across the country. The TERI-financed assistance will also enable the MoSA to acquire needed equipment and support the awareness of Tunisians regarding their social protection and legal rights.