The World Bank National Social Safety Nets Project (P151488) REPORT NO.: RES51833 DOCUMENT OF THE WORLD BANK RESTRUCTURING PAPER ON A PROPOSED PROJECT RESTRUCTURING OF NATIONAL SOCIAL SAFETY NETS PROJECT APPROVED ON JUNE 7, 2016 TO FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA SOCIAL PROTECTION & JOBS WESTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA Regional Vice President: Ousmane Diagana Country Director: Shubham Chaudhuri Regional Director: Dena Ringold Practice Manager/Manager: Dhushyanth Raju Task Team Leader(s): Muderis Abdulahi Mohammed The World Bank National Social Safety Nets Project (P151488) I. BASIC DATA Product Information Project ID Financing Instrument P151488 Investment Project Financing Original EA Category Current EA Category Not Required (C) Not Required (C) Approval Date Current Closing Date 07-Jun-2016 30-Jun-2022 Organizations Borrower Responsible Agency Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management Federal Republic of Nigeria and Social Development Project Development Objective (PDO) Original PDO The project development objective (PDO) is to provide access to targeted transfers to poor and vulnerable households under an expanded national social safety nets system. Summary Status of Financing (US$, Millions) Net Ln/Cr/Tf Approval Signing Effectiveness Closing Commitment Disbursed Undisbursed IDA-58310 07-Jun-2016 27-Jan-2017 03-Oct-2017 30-Jun-2022 500.00 491.98 .35 Policy Waiver(s) Does this restructuring trigger the need for any policy waiver(s)? No The World Bank National Social Safety Nets Project (P151488) II. SUMMARY OF PROJECT STATUS AND PROPOSED CHANGES The project is at the final stage of implementation with the original planned closing date of June 30, 2022. Progress and status: Overall, the project has made satisfactory progress towards achieving the PDO, meeting and surpassing set targets for outcome and output level indicators. The implementation progress has shown good improvements in the last one year. However, the implementation rating of the project remains moderately satisfactory (MS), mainly due to the low performance rating of the fiduciary management. The National Social Register (NSR) has surpassed the intended targets and now contains 11.5 million poor and vulnerable households (47 million individuals) in state registries across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This has led to 1.94 million households enrolled to receive cash transfers under the Household Uplifting Programme. Both the NSR and the Rapid Response Register (RRR) serve as a platform for targeting of poor and vulnerable population or the new NASSP Scale Up (NASSP-SU, P176935), and other social programs, including the payment to 500,000 beneficiaries mined from the RRR for the Government COVID 19 Cash transfer. The status of the overall disbursement of the project funds is close to 100% both from IDA and from Abacha Restituted Fund (ARF). The project has no overdue audit. While the project has recorded significant progress in all areas since its effectiveness, particularly over the last two years, there were several important challenges that has affected implementation. They include (i) substantial delay between approval and effectiveness, coupled with slow start of implementation; (ii) the initial transition process of changing the project oversight from the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD) resulted in delays in certain decision that affected implementation progress: (iii) disruption in payment to beneficiaries for several months prior to June-July 2021, partly due to delays in the procurement process to extend the contract of Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and also due to the government decision to fully digitize transfer payment system with the objective to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability; (iv) COVID-19 pandemic outbreak had a significant negative impact on the smooth implementation, monitoring and supervision of the project; and (v) slow progress in improving fiduciary management (financial management and procurement) mainly due to capacity constraints. Even though these challenges were identified and addressed overtime through specific actions plans developed and implemented, their impact may still affect full completion of some project activities as intended by end of June 2022. . Considering the above challenges, the government made a request for restructuring of the project to 1) extend the project closing date to October 31, 2022, and ii) to make budget reallocation across certain cost categories. Extension of the Project Closing date: Based on the request of government, it is proposed to extend the project closing date to October 31, 2022.The rationale for the extension of the project closing date includes: i) Additional time to effectively complete project activities: There is a need to provide more time to compensate for the delay in implementation that have happened due to the above challenges and to ensure that any aspect of the project which may not be likely to be completed by the end of June 30,2022, will be effectively finalized with due diligence including full spending and documentation of project funds that have been disbursed. ii) Smooth transition from NASSP to NASSP-SU: NASSP-SU was approved in December 2021 but is not yet effective. The original plan was that NASSP-SU would be effective at the time of NASSP closing. However, while there is good progress towards finalizing the preparatory activities and effectiveness conditions, there are important The World Bank National Social Safety Nets Project (P151488) decisions yet to be made including signing of financing agreement of NASSP-SU, approval of borrowing plan and finalizing a number of effectiveness and disbursement conditions. This in turn will result in disruption of payment to the current beneficiaries and other preparatory activities until NASSP-SU is effective. Considering that the beneficiaries have recently received several rounds of backlog payment, and with the proposed extension of the project closing date, the remaining last rounds of payment to beneficiaries will be extended beyond June 30, 2022, to minimize the gap in the support until NASSP-SU becomes effective. Reallocation of fund across cost categories: The reallocation of some funds is proposed between selected cost categories to cover additional budget required for certain critical activities which are important under the current NASSP and will also be prerequisite for the NASSP-SU. This includes the expansion of National Social Registry (NSR) in line with the recent agreement and decision to cover all Local Government Authorities (LGAs) through NASSP-SU support. In addition, some small fund will be re-allocated from cash transfer to cover the cost of debit cards to be issued to beneficiaries to support last mile interoperable access to digital payment services for the current and new project, and which will also enhance the broader financial inclusion for the poor in the long run. The proposed reallocation will not have material impact on the implementation of the project activities. The detailed re-allocation is showed in the table below. III. DETAILED CHANGES LOAN CLOSING DATE(S) Original Revised Proposed Proposed Deadline Ln/Cr/Tf Status Closing Closing(s) Closing for Withdrawal Applications IDA-58310 Effective 30-Jun-2022 31-Oct-2022 28-Feb-2023 REALLOCATION BETWEEN DISBURSEMENT CATEGORIES Current Current Actuals + Proposed Disbursement % Ln/Cr/TF Expenditure Allocation Committed Allocation (Type Total) Category Current Proposed IDA-58310- GO,NCS,CS&TR- 001 Pts A1b,d,e & 42,600,000.00 21,831,523.31 27,690,000.00 100.00 100.00 Currency: A2a,b XDR The World Bank National Social Safety Nets Project (P151488) GO,NCS,CS&TR- Pts A1a,c & 35,781,206.00 34,538,904.35 38,458,156.00 100.00 100.00 A2c,d Output-based financing of Part 3,500,000.00 3,091,211.37 3,500,000.00 100.00 100.00 A1f Output-based financing of Part 16,847,585.00 16,813,034.15 31,757,585.00 100.00 100.00 A2e Output-based financing of Part 12,912,112.00 9,632,768.43 12,912,112.00 100.00 100.00 B.1 Targeted Cash Transfers Part 243,359,097.00 62,596,824.57 240,682,147.00 100.00 100.00 B.2 Total 355,000,000.00 148,504,266.18 355,000,000.00