World Bank approves $130 mln loan installment for Egypt two social schemes

The World Bank Group has approved to provide the second $130 million tranche of a loan designated to support Egyptian government’s Takaful and Karama national targeted social safety net programme.

Egyptian Minister of Social Solidarity Ghada Wali said her country would receive $100 million of the second tranche by the end of the current June, and $30 million by early next August.

Wali also said the Ministry of Finance had increased money allocated for the Takaful and Karama national programme to become 4 billion Egyptian pounds ($450.2 million).

Egypt’s government established earlier in 2015 conditional cash transfer projects called Takaful and Karama (Solidarity and Dignity).

The Strengthening Social Safety Net Project will support the Ministry of Social Solidarity’s implementation of a system that properly identifies the poor, that its resources reach the poorest segments, and that the business process of the social safety net system becomes more efficient, more responsive, and accountable to clients.

Under the Takaful programme, poor households will receive monthly income support based on an incentive-system related to school attendance and utilizing maternal and child health care services. Karama is an unconditional income support that aims at protecting and reaching out to poor elderly people above 65 years and those with severe disabilities.

Takaful pays each family 325 pounds in addition to 60-100 pounds per child on a monthly basis, while Karama pays each elderly or disabled person 350 pounds per month.

The programme has reached in its first year 1.200 million families, Minister Wali added.