Document of The World Bank Report No: ICR00003749 IMPLEMENTATION COMPLETION AND RESULTS REPORT (IDA-H5780) ON A GRANT IN THE AMOUNT OF SDR 6.6 MILLION (US$10 MILLION EQUIVALENT) TO THE THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO FOR A STREET CHILDREN PROJECT February 29, 2016 Social Protection and Labor Practice Africa CURRENCY EQUIVALENTS (Exchange Rate Effective at Project Closing, August 31, 2015) Currency Unit = Congolese Franc CDF 928 = US$1 FISCAL YEAR January 1 – December 31 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS DEP Unit for Research and Planning (Direction d ’Etudes et de Planification) DISPE Unit for Social Interventions for Child Protection (Direction des Interventions Sociales pour la Protection de l’Enfant) DRC Democratic Republic of Congo FBO Faith-based Organization ICR Implementation Completion and Results Report IDA International Development Association MDG Millennium Development Goal MINAS Ministry of Social Affairs, Humanitarian Action, and National Solidarity M&E Monitoring and Evaluation MoU Memorandum of Understanding NGO Nongovernmental Organization OVC Orphans and Vulnerable Children PAD Project Appraisal Document PDO Project Development Objective PIU Project Implementation Unit UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund USAID U.S. Agency for International Development Senior Global Practice Director: Xiaoqing Yu Practice Manager: Stefano Paternostro Project Team Leader: Maurizia Tovo ICR Team Leader: Fanta Touré DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Street Children Project CONTENTS Data Sheet A. Basic Information B. Key Dates C. Ratings Summary D. Sector and Theme Codes E. Bank Staff F. Results Framework Analysis G. Ratings of Project Performance in ISRs H. Restructuring I. Disbursement Graph 1.  Project Context, Development Objectives and Design ....................................................... 1  2.  Key Factors Affecting Implementation and Outcomes ...................................................... 5  3.  Assessment of Outcomes .................................................................................................. 12  4.  Assessment of Risk to Development Outcome ................................................................. 17  5.  Assessment of Bank and Borrower Performance ............................................................. 17  6.  Lessons Learned................................................................................................................ 20  7.  Comments on Issues Raised by Borrower/Implementing Agencies/Partners................... 21  Annex 1. Project Costs and Financing .................................................................................... 23  Annex 2. Outputs by Component............................................................................................ 24  Annex 3. Economic and Financial Analysis ........................................................................... 27  Annex 4. Bank Lending and Implementation Support/Supervision Processes....................... 28  Annex 5. Beneficiary Survey Results ..................................................................................... 29  Annex 6. Summary of Borrower's ICR and/or Comments on Draft ICR ............................... 34  Annex 7. List of Supporting Documents ................................................................................ 36  MAP ........................................................................................................................................ 38  DATA SHEET A. Basic Information Congo, Democratic DRC Street Children Country: Project Name: Republic of Project Project ID: P115318 L/C/TF Number(s): IDA-H5780 ICR Date: 02/10/2016 ICR Type: Core ICR DEMOCRATIC Specific Investment Lending Instrument: Borrower: REPUBLIC OF Loan CONGO Original Total XDR 6.60 million Disbursed Amount: XDR 6.35 million Commitment: Revised Amount: XDR 6.60 million Environmental Category: C Implementing Agencies: Cofinanciers and Other External Partners: B. Key Dates Revised / Actual Process Date Process Original Date Date(s) Concept Review: 12/08/2009 Effectiveness: Appraisal: 03/19/2010 Restructuring(s): 08/13/2014 Approval: 06/01/2010 Midterm Review: 01/06/2014 02/21/2014 Closing: 08/31/2015 08/31/2015 C. Ratings Summary C.1 Performance Rating by ICR Outcomes: Satisfactory Risk to Development Outcome: Substantial Bank Performance: Moderately Satisfactory Borrower Performance: Moderately Satisfactory C.2 Detailed Ratings of Bank and Borrower Performance (by ICR) Bank Ratings Borrower Ratings Quality at Entry: Moderately Satisfactory Government: Moderately Satisfactory Implementing Quality of Supervision: Satisfactory Satisfactory Agency/Agencies: Overall Bank Overall Borrower Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory Performance: Performance: C.3 Quality at Entry and Implementation Performance Indicators Implementation QAG Assessments Indicators Rating Performance (if any) Potential Problem Project Yes Quality at Entry None i at any time (Yes/No): (QEA): Problem Project at any Quality of Yes None time (Yes/No): Supervision (QSA): DO rating before Satisfactory Closing/Inactive status: D. Sector and Theme Codes Original Actual Sector Code (as % of total Bank financing) General information and communications sector 8 5 Other social services 71 67 Primary education 8 4 Public administration - Other social services 13 24 Theme Code (as % of total Bank financing) Education for all 8 4 Gender 21 17 Participation and civic engagement 23 28 Social Protection and Labor Policy & Systems 13 9 Social Safety Nets/Social Assistance & Social Care 35 42 Services E. Bank Staff Positions At ICR At Approval Vice President: Makhtar Diop Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili Country Director: Ahmadou Moustapha Ndiaye Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly Practice Stefano Paternostro Lynne D. Sherburne-Benz Manager/Manager: Project Team Leader: Maurizia Tovo Anne Mossige ICR Team Leader: Fanta Toure – ICR Primary Author: Catherine A. Gibbons – F. Results Framework Analysis Project Development Objectives (from Project Appraisal Document) The development objective is to improve the delivery mechanisms of prevention and support services for street children, primarily in Kinshasa. Revised Project Development Objectives (as approved by original approving authority) Not applicable. ii (a) PDO Indicator(s) Original Target Formally Actual Value Values (from Revised Achieved at Indicator Baseline Value approval Target Completion or documents) Values Target Years Indicator 1: Child Protection Committees that are active (percent) Value Quantitative or 50% 75% – 100 Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments Overachieved. All 127 child protection committees were operational at project (including % completion. achievement) Target households who recall correctly key messages about children rights from Indicator 2: the campaigns financed under the project (percent) Value Quantitative or Not applicable 70 – 87 Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Overachieved. achievement) Children at risk provided with education or remedial education opportunities Indicator 3: financed under the project (number per year, disaggregated by sex) Value Quantitative or 0 2,500 – 5,529 (40% girls) Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Overachieved achievement) Street children offered access to comprehensive support services (number, Indicator 4: disaggregated by sex) Value Quantitative or 1,013 5,500 – 10,057 (41% girls) Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Overachieved. This includes children benefiting from temporary day or night Comments shelter and long-term shelter. In general, children benefiting from shelter are (including % provided with at least three services (that is, comprehensive support), but there is achievement) a risk of over Street children having restored relationships with their families (number, Indicator 5: disaggregated by sex) Value 253 800 – 5,335 (48% girls) iii Quantitative or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments Overachieved. Of those children who reestablished relations with their family, (including % 4,099 returned to live with the biological family, a 77% success rate. achievement) Direct project beneficiaries (number) - percentage female (CORE), broken down by children supported per type of services; community leaders and authorities Indicator 6: sensitized; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government workers trained Direct project Direct project beneficiaries: beneficiaries: 9,450; Direct project 17,293; Number of beneficiaries: 0; Number of children children assisted: Number of children assisted: 15,586 Value 8,000; assisted: 0; (41% girls); Quantitative or Community – Community leaders and Community leaders Qualitative) leaders and authorities sensitized: 0; and authorities authorities NGOs and government sensitized: 1,204; sensitized: 800; workers trained: 0 Civil servants and Civil servants and NGO employees NGO employees trained: 503 trained: 650 Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Overachieved achievement) (b) Intermediate Outcome Indicator(s) Original Target Formally Actual Value Values (from Revised Achieved at Indicator Baseline Value approval Target Completion or documents) Values Target Years Indicator 1: Radio broadcasts on child protection (number per year) Value (Quantitative 96 600 – 596 or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Achieved. Not reported under this indicator are an additional 586 TV and radio Comments transmissions of 8 documentaries and 12 spots on child protection developed by (including % Search for Common Ground, an international NGO, specialized in audiovisual achievement) communication. Indicator 2: Child protection committees established; or strengthened (number) Value Child protection Child protection – Child protection iv (Quantitative committees established: committees committees or Qualitative) 0; established: 72; established: 75; Child protection Child protection Child protection committees strengthened: committees committees 12 strengthened: 62 strengthened: 52 Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 08/31/2015 Comments Partially achieved. At the end of the project, there was one committee in each of (including % the participating neighborhoods. No additional committees were needed. achievement) Community events on children's rights and parental responsibility (for example, Indicator 3: interactive theater) (number per year) Value (Quantitative 50 550 – 488 or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – Comments Partially achieved. As with Indicator 2 above, the Project Implementation Unit (incl. % (PIU) misunderstood the cumulative target as 120, which was in fact the final achievement) year target. Street children using at least one service offered by transit centers financed Indicator 4: under the project (number, disaggregated by sex) Value (Quantitative 0 8,000 – 10,057 (41% girls) or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Overachieved. It is possible that there is some double counting in this result. Comments However, the project did its best to minimize by giving each social worker (including % responsibility for a cohort of children that they knew by name and increasing achievement) coordination among centers. Street children benefiting from skills training courses; and formal and nonformal Indicator 5: education (number per year, disaggregated by sex) Children Children benefiting benefiting from from skills training Children benefiting from skills training course: 1,660 (54% Value skills training course: 6,741; girls); (Quantitative course:1,741; Children – Children benefiting or Qualitative) formal and nonformal benefiting from from formal and education: 1,784 formal and nonformal nonformal education: 6,294 education: 6,784 (46% girls) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Underachieved. This indicator is much lower than expected because the majority Comments of street children who are in the shelters are under 15, which is the minimum age (including % for a child to participate in vocational training (older street children are less achievement) likely to was Indicator 6: NGOs/faith-based organizations (FBOs) supported by the project achieving at v least 90% of the agreed performance indicators (%) Value (Quantitative n.a. 70 – 100 or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Overachieved achievement) National standards for service delivery to street children developed and validated Indicator 7: (Yes/No) Value (Quantitative No Yes – Yes or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Achieved achievement) A national multisectoral coordination committee for the protection of orphans Indicator 8: and vulnerable children (OVC) is established and operational Value (Quantitative No Yes – Yes or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Achieved achievement) A database established and managed by the Unit for Social Interventions for Child Protection (Direction des Interventions Sociales pour la Protection de l’Enfant, DISPE) with the support of the Unit for Research and Planning Indicator 9: (Direction d ’Etudes et de Planification, DEP) to monitor and coordinate ongoing children rights interventions as well as to capture the number of beneficiaries per category of service is established (Yes/No) Value (Quantitative No Yes – Yes or Qualitative) Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Achieved achievement) Annual evaluation of the effectiveness and costs of different prevention and Indicator 10: support services (Yes/No) Value (Quantitative No Yes – Yes or Qualitative) vi Date achieved 06/01/2010 02/28/2011 – 08/31/2015 Comments (including % Achieved achievement) G. Ratings of Project Performance in ISRs Actual Date ISR No. DO IP Disbursements Archived (US$, millions) 1 04/13/2011 Satisfactory Satisfactory 0.60 2 10/23/2011 Satisfactory Satisfactory 0.73 Moderately Moderately 3 06/25/2012 1.19 Unsatisfactory Unsatisfactory 4 02/17/2013 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 2.28 5 09/20/2013 Moderately Satisfactory Moderately Satisfactory 4.15 6 05/03/2014 Satisfactory Satisfactory 6.49 7 11/19/2014 Satisfactory Satisfactory 7.83 8 06/10/2015 Satisfactory Satisfactory 9.23 H. Restructuring (if any) ISR Ratings at Amount Board Restructuring Disbursed at Restructuring Reason for Restructuring & Approved Restructuring Date(s) Key Changes Made PDO Change DO IP in US$, millions The government institution that initially had responsibility for the fiduciary management of the project was no longer able 08/13/2014 No S S 7.35 to play its role. Fiduciary responsibilities were transferred to the PIU, with the Ministry of Social Affairs. vii I. Disbursement Profile viii 1. Project Context, Development Objectives, and Design 1.1 Context at Appraisal 1. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Street Children Project was approved by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors on June 1, 2010 and made effective on February 28, 2011. It closed on August 31, 2015 with satisfactory ratings, having exceeded all but one of its outcome indicators. The project was restructured in August 2014 but received no extensions or additional financing. 2. At the time of project approval on June 1, 2010, the DRC was emerging from years of conflict and political instability. Since 2007, the government had implemented policies geared toward promoting good governance, consolidating peace, fostering macroeconomic stability and growth, and improving access to basic social services. In the process, the economy had secured important gains, and was growing at an average rate of 6.7 percent per year. 3. The social situation, however, was extremely fragile. The DRC ranked 176 out of 182 countries in the 2009 Human Development Index and poverty was widespread. The national statistics at the time indicated that about 70–80 percent of the population lived under the poverty line in 2007. The global financial crisis and the food crisis of 2008 had further aggravated this situation. In the Katanga Province alone, 300,000 workers had lost their jobs in the course of these crises. Impoverishment, violence, human rights abuses, and large-scale internal displacements resulting from the war had caused untold suffering and a deep deterioration of the social fabric, overburdening or breaking up families and traditional social safety nets. Perhaps the most heartrending manifestation of this social disruption was the growing number of street children in the country’s urban centers. 4. At the time of project design, there were an estimated 40,000 street children in the DRC, including about 14,000 in Kinshasa,1 though many development actors believe this number to be an underestimate. Of this total, an estimated 26 percent were girls, who are more vulnerable to rape, unwanted pregnancy, and other forms of abuse. Because of the violence to which they were exposed on a daily basis and the lack of adult guidance, street children tended to live on the margins of society and engage in antisocial behavior, including substance abuse, crime, vandalism, sex work, and unsafe sex. Studies conducted in Kinshasa reported that nine out of ten street girls were involved in sex work, and seven out of ten have been raped. These experiences have highly negative consequences for the children themselves (drug addiction, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted early pregnancies, imprisonment) but, also, for society as a whole. In addition to the obvious security problem posed by street children and the consequent loss of business or diminished quality of life for the general population, street children without assistance are not likely to grow up into well-adjusted and productive adults and may instead become easy prey for recruitment by urban gangs and militias. The issue of children living on the street was considered not only a major human development issue, but also an economic and a security risk. 1 UNICEF. 2006. Recensement des enfants de la rue de la ville province de Kinshasa. 1 5. Both the political will and institutional framework required to address the issue of street children were in place at the time of project design. Since 2004, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Humanitarian Action, and National Solidarity (MINAS) had produced a social protection strategy for vulnerable groups. MINAS had also developed a National Action Plan for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in 2009. The promulgation of the Child Protection Law, which was developed with considerable support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), illustrated the political will to respect and promote children rights in accordance with international law. Other ministries (such as the Ministry of Gender, Family, and Children; the Ministry of Public Health; the Ministry of Youth and Sports; the Ministry of Education; the Ministry of Interior; the Ministry of Security; the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection; and the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights) had been involved in one way or another in child protection issues. Numerous coordination bodies were in place, including the UNICEF-supported OVC coordination committee (locally known as Commission mixte) that comprised several ministries, donors, and national and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and faith-based organizations (FBOs) involved in child protection. 6. The project was implemented in a very difficult post-conflict operational environment where limited systems existed, social interventions were geared towards providing emergency assistance and governance challenges were widespread. Social and institutional capital remained very weak throughout implementation, with constant threats of political instability. In the eastern provinces of the country, active conflict persisted, which resulted in ongoing displacement of populations, with many families streaming into Kinshasa and other parts of the country, considered more stable. 1.2 Original Project Development Objectives (PDO) and Key Indicators 7. The PDO was to improve the delivery mechanisms of prevention and support services for street children, primarily in Kinshasa. 8. The key outcome indicators at design were the following:  Child protection committees that are active (%)2  Target households who correctly recall key messages about children’s rights from the campaigns financed under the project (%)  Children at risk provided with education or remedial education opportunities financed under the project (number per year, disaggregated by sex)  Street children offered access to comprehensive support services 3 (number, disaggregated by sex) 2 Active is defined relatively to the mandate of the child protection committees based on (a) the number of technical meetings held per month; (b) the percentage of child protection cases that are successfully addressed per month; and (c) the understanding of laws pertaining to child protection. 3 Comprehensive support services are defined as education, health, shelter (may be temporary), psychosocial support, vocational training, and family reunification. 2  Street children having restored 4 relationships with their families (number, disaggregated by sex)  Direct project beneficiaries (number) - % female (core) broken down by (a) children supported per type of services, (b) community leaders and authorities sensitized,5 (c) NGOs and government workers trained 9. The indicators remained unchanged through the life of the project. However, all key stakeholders in the project held a workshop in December 2013 before the midterm review, to clarify the definition of the indicators and ensure a shared understanding. 1.3 Revised PDO (as approved by original approving authority) and Key Indicators, and Reasons/Justification 10. The PDO and key indicators remained unchanged through the life of the project. 1.4 Main Beneficiaries 11. The beneficiaries of Component 1 (prevention) are defined in the Project Appraisal Document (PAD) as children at risk and their households, living primarily in four communes of the greater Kinshasa metropolitan area that are most often the point of origin for street children (the so-called supplying zones of Masina, Kimbanseke, Limete, and Bumbu). Children at risk were identified as those affected by the most common proximate causes of ‘streetism’, including (a) family break-up and the subsequent abandonment, mistreatment, or severe neglect of orphans and step-children; (b) accusations of witchcraft; (c) lack of parental responsibility or simply ignorance of children’s needs and rights; and (d) dropping out of school. 12. Under Component 2 (assistance), the project targeted street children, defined in the appraisal document as ‘“boys and girls under the age of 18, loitering and living in the street, who are no longer under the authority and responsibility of an adult, and who make a living on the street using all means necessary.” A particular focus on street girls was promoted. While girls made up only one in four street children, they were considered a priority given their increased vulnerability to rape and other forms of abuse. Activities were planned to focus on 8 of the 24 communes of the Kinshasa larger metropolitan area, selected for their high concentration of street children: Gombé, Kinshasa, Masina, Matete, Kasa-vubu, Kalamu, Kitambo, and Selembao. 13. Component 3 (capacity building) was focused on strengthening the capacity of national institutional actors and implementing partners with a direct role in the prevention and delivery of assistance to children at risk and street children. These included the MINAS through its Unit for Social Interventions for Child Protection (in French Direction des Interventions Sociales pour la Protection de l’Enfant or DISPE) and its Unit for Research and Planning (in French Direction d ’Etudes et de Planification or DEP); the Ministries of Justice, Gender, Education, Family, and Children; service providers (NGOs and FBOs); local community committees involved in 4 Defined as having given or received at least two visits to/from relatives per year. 5 These may include neighborhood chiefs; religious authorities (pastors, priests); school principals; presidents of women’s associations and other community-based organizations; and government representatives. 3 community-based prevention activities; local media; and the umbrella association of NGOs working with street children (REJEER). 14. Though the project was designed to primarily benefit current or potential street children in Kinshasa and its larger metropolitan area, some of its prevention and capacity-building activities were to have a national coverage. For example, radio programs on children rights were broadcasted in all the provinces, and training for MINAS staff were also provided to personnel based outside the capital. 1.5 Original Components 15. The project was planned to finance a package of short-term and medium- to longer-term interventions developed based on experience with the delivery of prevention and response interventions in the country. It also planned to strengthen the capacity of MINAS to effectively coordinate, monitor, and evaluate ongoing interventions. The project had the following three components for a total value of XDR 6.60 million, equivalent to US$10 million at the time of approval. 16. Component 1: Prevention (US$3.1 million). As mentioned above, this component aimed at tackling the most common proximate causes of ‘streetism’. Activities to reduce the number of children ending up in the streets included (a) organization and support to community- level child-protection networks; (b) community awareness campaigns (for example, using interactive theater); (c) media outreach through community radios; and (d) support to schooling opportunities. 17. Component 2: Assistance (US$4.3 million). This component aimed at improving coverage and quality of services for street children, with particular attention to the special needs of street girls. Activities aimed at improving coverage and quality of basic services for street children were provided. These included health, education (formal and nonformal), shelter, medical services, food, psychosocial assistance, legal services, family reintegration (when appropriate), group housing, skills training, and economic reintegration. 18. Component 3: Capacity building, coordination, and project management (US$2.6 million). Activities were conducted to build the capacity of project stakeholders, especially MINAS, to (a) develop standards for activities targeting street children; (b) coordinate the interventions of different stakeholders (national and international actors); and (c) monitor and evaluate ongoing interventions. Trainings were also provided to service providers, including local NGOs and FBOs, the media, representatives from the Ministries of Justice, Education, Gender, Family, and Children. 1.6 Revised Components 19. There were no revisions to the components and they largely functioned and were implemented as described in section 1.5. 4 1.7 Other Significant Changes 20. There were no changes to the design, scope, and scale or funding allocations of the project. The implementation arrangements were modified in August 2014 through a level 2 restructuring to give full responsibility for fiduciary management to the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) at MINAS. 21. In its initial design, the project gave fiduciary responsibilities to the Social Fund of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Social Fund), a government institution with over ten years of experience successfully managing International Development Association (IDA)-funded community-driven development projects of over US$100 million in budget. This choice was informed by the limited capacity of MINAS and the desire to promote efficiency by tapping into existing resources supported by the same donor (fiduciary experts at the Social Fund) rather than recruiting a new team of experts on the relatively limited budget of the Street Children Project. However, the project midterm review found that the Social Fund had become overstretched because of a new project and unable to provide the level of oversight required. After a rapid assessment of the capacity of MINAS (which had by then developed familiarity with Bank fiduciary policy and procedures), all fiduciary functions were shifted under the responsibility of its PIU. According to the terms of the restructuring, which was finalized on August 13, 2014, a full-time internal auditor and a part-time procurement specialist were recruited to strengthen the PIU fiduciary functions. 2. Key Factors Affecting Implementation and Outcomes 2.1 Project Preparation, Design, and Quality at Entry 22. Soundness of background analysis. Extensive background analysis informed project design. During preparation, a consultant recruited by the Bank reviewed and mapped all child protection interventions in Kinshasa. The study identified key stakeholders, analyzed the needs of the children, and formulated some recommendations for project design. In-depth and systematic consultations were subsequently held with government actors, technical and financial partners, FBOs, and NGOs working on child protection and helped identify priority intervention areas for the proposed Bank funding. The gaps identified were described in the PAD to include insufficient coverage of services; limited focus on preventive measures; inadequate skills and training of most private and public service providers; very few successful interventions and limited expertise in the area of psychosocial assistance; and weak national leadership. Accordingly, the project focused on prevention, assistance, and strengthening the capacity of service providers as well as the government to coordinate child protection interventions. 23. Assessment of project design. The technical design of the project was sound and reflected lessons learned from the implementation of similar interventions in other contexts,6 including (a) investing in prevention activities; (b) attempting to mainstream children and facilitating reintegration within the family and the community; and (c) supporting vocational 6 The project document stipulates that lessons from non-Bank operations targeting street children in other countries came primarily from Latin America, where formal efforts to deal with the problem date back to the 1980s with the active involvement of the Inter-American Development Bank and also from a number of African and Asian countries where NGOs have generally been at the forefront of efforts. 5 training and professional education when feasible. The PDO was specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic. The components were well formulated to contribute to the objective, and their simple design was appropriate for the low-capacity context. The intervention focused on Kinshasa and its metropolitan area, which was a sound strategic approach to show impact while tackling a complex issue, given the relatively limited envelope of the project. 24. Adequacy of government commitment. MINAS, as the ministry mandated for noncontributory social protection, showed strong interest and commitment to the operation from the design stage until closing. However, because of the capacity challenges facing the ministry (lack basic office space, limited logistical and communications means, and absence of well- remunerated qualified staff), the decision was made to share responsibilities for implementation with the Social Fund. A leanly staffed PIU was to be established with the responsibility for day- to-day project management. However, considering MINAS’ lack of experience with Bank projects and its overall weakness, fiduciary responsibility was given to the Social Fund, an autonomous government agency with an established good record in managing IDA funds and, at the time, a dwindling portfolio—and therefore under-programmed fiduciary staff. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) (Protocol d’accord) spelled out the duties and responsibilities of the two parties. A steering committee comprising representatives of the following entities served as the oversight body: the Studies and Planning Department of MINAS; the Child Protection Department of MINAS; the Provincial Division for Social Affairs (Kinshasa) of MINAS; civil society (one of the umbrella NGO organizations); the Ministry of Primary, Secondary, and Professional Education; and the Ministry of Gender, Family, and Children. Most activities under Components 1 and 2, as well as some of the activities under Component 3, were to be contracted to private actors (NGOs, FBOs, consulting firms). Selection of partner implementing organizations was to be carried out in line with Bank procedures. These institutional arrangements sought to strike a balance between promoting government ownership and ensuring quality of delivery by involving institutions with the required technical expertise. While it was technically sound given the low capacity context, the arrangement did complicate fiduciary management for the project. 25. Assessment of risks. The overall risk rating was High, which was appropriate given the fragility of the overall context. Four of the risks anticipated at the design stage materialized during implementation: (a) high turnover of staff interfered with capacity-building efforts; (b) the Social Fund became overwhelmed and unable to deliver optimum performance in fiduciary management; (c) the relationship between MINAS and the Social Fund became strained; and (d) partner NGO/FBO had some capacity deficits. The mitigation measures planned were effectively triggered and reduced the impact of the negative events on the project, which was able to achieve and in most cases exceed all its intended outcome indicators. 2.2 Implementation Quality of Implementation 26. The project became effective on February 28, 2011, eight months after approval. It was downgraded to Moderately Unsatisfactory in 2012, continuously improved to Moderately Satisfactory until the midterm review, and was ranked Satisfactory during its final 15 months. 6 27. The slow start was partially due to difficulties in meeting the four nonstandard effectiveness conditions that are included in the Financing Agreement: (a) the adoption of a project implementation manual; (b) the establishment of a steering committee to provide oversight in implementation; (c) the establishment of a PIU as the entity in charge of the day-to- day management of the Street Children Project, including the recruitment of key staff; and (d) the execution and delivery of the MoU between the recipient through the MINAS and the Social Fund. 28. Several factors gave rise to challenges during project implementation, particularly during the early years.  The lack of project preparation funds to provide the Social Fund with the adequate level of resources required to meet all the effectiveness conditions on time.  The PIU and the implementing partners were not familiar with Bank guidelines and procedures. Despite having been selected through a competitive process, the PIU staff had an appropriate technical profile but limited project management experience. This low capacity created a steep learning curve for the project management staff and accounted for a difficult first year of implementation.  The MoU between MINAS and the Social Fund took a long time to be negotiated and settled. The complexity of the institutional arrangements created two lines of accountability, which resulted in tensions between MINAS and the Social Fund, slowing the decision-making process.  The Bank presented an opportunity for the project to access an additional US$1.8 million grant to pilot a conditional cash transfer intervention on condition that the PIU provide a list of beneficiary households (to be identified with the help of implementing partners). The PIU failed to identify the beneficiaries and, after eight months, the grant was cancelled.  When the NGOs/FBOs subcontracted community-based organizations to conduct activities, the quality of the assistance delivered often suffered. This problem was addressed during the midterm review, with the decision to stop subcontracting interventions to smaller organizations  The sudden departure and subsequent high turnover of the Social Fund procurement staff caused implementation delays until the restructuring. 29. Project performance improved to Moderately Satisfactory after all service providers were recruited in 2012. The rating continued to improve to Satisfactory until closing. The following factors contributed to successful implementation:  Technical expertise of the service providers. All twelve service providers recruited (three international and nine national NGOs) had extensive experience working with street children in Kinshasa. This ensured that rapid progress was made in achieving project targets once all key partners were in place. 7  Technical support from the Bank. Close supervision by the Bank staff, including the recruitment of an experienced consultant based in Kinshasa, was key in rapidly addressing implementation issues as they unfolded, including by providing hands-on support.  Project restructuring. As previously mentioned, once it was established that the Social Fund was no longer able to effectively assume its fiduciary duties, the project was restructured to simplify institutional arrangements. Case Reported to the Department of Institutional Integrity 30. In 2012, allegations of financial mismanagement and corruption within the PIU was brought up. A public exchange of accusations ensued and the case was reported to the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT) where it was decided that an operational response would be more appropriate than a formal INT investigation. The Social Fund conducted a thorough assessment that confirmed that $1600 had been misappropriated. The following course of action was adopted: (i) temporary suspension of the project staff involved; (ii) reimbursement of the misappropriated funds; and (iii) issuance of a strong letter of warning to the project coordinator who was exhorted to strictly enforce administrative and financial management procedures. While this incident did not have any impact on the project outcomes, it further strained the relationship between the PIU/MINAS and the Social Fund, eventually contributing to the decision to restructure the project in August 2014. As one of the conditions for transferring fiduciary responsibilities to the PIU, an internal auditor was recruited to reduce risks of mismanagement, which was deemed satisfactory to the Bank. No further concerns arose. 2.3 Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Design, Implementation, and Utilization 31. Adequate indicators were identified to monitor progress toward achieving the PDO. There were some delays in developing the M&E manual, given capacity constraints within the PIU, but by June 2012, the project adopted an M&E manual, which outlined a data gathering and reporting protocol for the implementing agencies who were responsible for collecting and sharing indicator data with the PIU. The quality of data collection and reporting during the first half of the project was affected by delays in recruiting a dedicated M&E specialist at the PIU after the post was vacated in 2012. The situation stabilized in 2013, and a workshop was conducted to harmonize understanding of all M&E indicators and confirm the accuracy of data provided to date. Two staff from MINAS were assigned to expand the reach of the M&E team within the PIU. All of these efforts led to the improved data quality. 32. Data collected through the regular monitoring exercises were effectively used to monitor project performance and informed corrective action as needed. For instance, the allocation of the budget envelope per zone was revised based on the review of number of beneficiaries targeted per NGO per location. Likewise, the cost of delivering the same services to the beneficiaries was harmonized by the end of the project, and norms and standards to deliver assistance were established based on information available in the M&E system. Utilization of the M&E system would have been optimal if it had been linked with the financial management system, which was not the case until the end of the project. With help from UNICEF and, later, the U.S. Agency for 8 International Development (USAID), the project developed a central child protection database for Kinshasa, which is being managed by the local MINAS office. 33. In parallel to the IDA-grant, the task team secured resources from a Trust Fund to carry out an impact evaluation of the prevention component. Fafo, a Norwegian research institute specialized in difficult-to-reach populations and with extensive experience in DRC was recruited for the task. However, findings from the evaluation were inconclusive because of a delay in project start-up, which required a second baseline survey to be conducted and prevented Fafo’s full involvement in the follow-up survey, as well as methodological limitations. For instance differentiating the control from the treatment group proved impossible as there were several interventions targeting the same communities and respondents could not reliably attribute a specific activity to a specific actor or project. However, sufficient anecdotal evidence (as well as findings from regular supervision missions) exist to document the positive impact of the project on the lives of the beneficiaries targeted. 2.4 Safeguard and Fiduciary Compliance 34. Social and environmental safeguards. The project was rated as Category C as no adverse environmental or social impacts were expected nor did they occur during implementation. 35. Fiduciary management performance. The PAD identified moderate fiduciary risks and proposed mitigation measures that were implemented during the project period. At the design stage, the Social Fund manuals were adapted for use by the project and its staff were responsible for managing staff recruitment, financial transactions, and reporting and procurement processes for the Street Children Project. While this arrangement was well informed given the strong performance of the Social Fund in managing its nationwide program, in practice, there were some problems at the outset. The Social Fund operating manuals were designed to manage community-based infrastructure projects, not social service projects, so there were some inconsistencies that needed to be overcome before the procedures were well adapted for the Street Children Project. The timing of the launch of the Street Children Project also coincided with a period of financial uncertainty for the Social Fund, causing some staffing shortages. As a result, the staff recruitment process for the PIU took longer than expected and once the staff was hired, it was expected to set the office up under difficult conditions since the project did not benefit from a project preparation grant. 36. By mid-2012, 15 months after project effectiveness and two years after Board approval, the project’s financial management was downgraded from Satisfactory to Moderately Unsatisfactory, in response to concerns that the Street Children Project’s PIU was not complying with the procedures highlighted in its manuals and was not receiving adequate oversight from the Social Fund. Corrective measures were adopted as described in paragraph 29. Subsequently, the project’s financial management improved considerably. Beneficiary NGOs consulted during the Implementation Completion and Results Report (ICR) preparation process commented that there were early problems but that recent cash flow has been very smooth, allowing them to carry out their projects on time. All external audit reports, including the final project audit of FY2015, were unqualified and submitted on time. 9 37. The project closing and application deadline dates being August 31, 2015 and December 31, 2015, respectively, due diligence on financial management, as it relates to project closing, was initiated with the following results: (a) Full documentation on the use of all funds advanced to the designated account and the refund of the undocumented balance of funds in the designated account has been effected. (b) The project physical asset inventory count was performed in August 2015, the physical inventory listings signed off by the project and MINAS, with ownership of the assets acquired using project funds reverting to MINAS. 38. The final audit report as well as associated financial statements were issued, with no qualification points for the former. 39. Procurement performance. Procurement for the Street Children Project occurred at two levels through the life of this project: (a) the selection of the implementing NGOs and (b) purchase of larger goods and recruitment of consultants. As in the case of financial management, in the project’s early years, the Social Fund was responsible for performing the procurement function for the Street Children Project. Performance was rated Satisfactory at first, but by June 2012, it was downgraded to Moderately Unsatisfactory due to the poor quality of procurement documents prepared by the Street Children Project’s staff, who lacked the appropriate level of oversight from the Social Fund, where there was a high turnover rate at the procurement specialist post (including periods during which the post was vacant). The Bank addressed these deficits by providing training on procurement to the PIU and following up with the Social Fund. The restructuring of the project in 2014 improved the situation. The PIU was responsible for performing the procurement function with the periodic support of a recruited procurement consultant. The second round of project grants to NGOs were signed by the end of 2014 and all the partners fully expended their funding before the project closing date. During the procurement post review carried out in June 2015, the procurement risk remained Substantial. 2.5 Post-completion Operation/Next Phase 40. Capacity to coordinate and deliver prevention interventions was effectively strengthened, and much of the work carried out has the potential for long-term impact: (a) households at risk gained knowledge through the dissemination of information about child rights and parental responsibilities; (b) community-based neighborhood prevention committees were created or strengthened; and (c) communication materials are still available. However, funding to continue carrying out these activities (including the support provided to reduce school dropout rates among children at risk) will be challenging to secure (see the section on Assessment of Risk to Development Outcome). 41. A number of the NGOs interviewed suggested that prevention activities might have had more sustainable results had there been an economic development aspect to the component. For instance, micro-savings, micro-credit, or entrepreneurship training could have been provided to households of children at risk. This ICR concludes that the design of the prevention component was appropriate given the low-capacity context. Additional activities geared toward poverty 10 reduction would have complicated the design of the operation by (a) introducing technical concepts for which little expertise was available among actors working on child protection; (b) reducing the total number of project beneficiaries; and (c) stretching the already limited budget envelop without guarantee of results. As one of its final investments, the project financed a training of its NGO and government partners in how to organize micro-savings programs for vulnerable households at risk of child abandonment. It also provided fundraising training to the NGOs, which built proposal writing skills and encouraged the participants to work together as a network to explore a range of local donors such as businesses active in the affected neighborhoods and national and international private and public sector sources. 42. Institutional sustainability. Of the twelve NGOs funded by the project, three international and nine local NGOs that were operating long before the project began have further improved their reputation for delivering quality prevention or assistance services. Even though they are faced with the challenge of raising new funds to replace the Bank resources, these local NGOs will likely continue operating and delivering services to the best of their capacity. 43. The project supported capacity-building efforts and investments that will exceed the life of the project as follows:  Helping MINAS develop norms and standards for preventing and assisting street children as well as best practice guidelines on how to reunite street children with their parents.  Including a high-level, MINAS staff person as part of its management team and inviting representatives from the national and provincial offices of MINAS to participate in joint supervision visits.  Providing trainings to MINAS staff during the course of the project, more specifically on norms and standards for service delivery, M&E, as well as fundraising.  Financing equipment such as computers and vehicles to facilitate MINAS’ work at the national and provincial level.  Rotating two MINAS social workers through the PIU, which gave these field officers some new skills in project oversight and improved the quality of project monitoring.  Rehabilitating the building where the project was housed after it moved out of the Social Fund’s offices for use by MINAS after project end. This building, which includes a meeting space that can comfortably accommodate up to 40 people, will continue to house MINAS activities related to vulnerable children.  Building a shelter with the capacity to house 70 children, within the campus of the provincial division of social affairs in Kinshasa. 11  Building the capacity of the NGO partners to meet the rigorous project and financial management standards required by a Bank-funded project, making them attractive partners to other donors.  Building the capacity of NGO partners to work in collaboration and develop winning proposals as individual organizations and in a consortium. 44. These efforts complemented Capacityplus, a comprehensive institutional strengthening intervention funded by USAID to build the management, planning, training, and supervision capacity of social service workers through direct partnership with MINAS. 3. Assessment of Outcomes 3.1 Relevance of Objectives, Design and Implementation - Rating: High (a) Relevance of Objectives (High) 45. The PDO is relevant to this day and will remain relevant as long as Kinshasa continues to host a large number of street children. Considering the root causes of the phenomenon—poverty, family break-up, lack of parental responsibility, and belief in witchcraft—the situation is not likely to change in the near future. The Bank’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for FY13–16 approved in April 2013 reflects this continued demand and includes “improving social service delivery to raise human development indicators” as one of its objectives. The project’s objective contributes to the Bank’s twin goals of eradicating poverty and contributing to shared prosperity, particularly the former since it aims to help the most vulnerable in society in one of the poorest countries in the world. 46. The PDO is also consistent with government policy priorities highlighted in the 2011– 2015 DRC Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (GPRSP 2). These include (a) promoting the rights and the dignity of vulnerable groups (through prevention and sensitization); (b) increasing access to basic social services; (c) promoting and facilitating the economic and socio-professional reintegration of vulnerable groups; and (d) building the capacity of key stakeholders. The project also contributed to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) No. 1 - eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; MDG No. 2 - achieve universal primary education; and MDGs No. 4 and 5 - reduce child mortality and improve maternal health. (b) Relevance of Design (High) 47. The project was designed around a solid causal model. Component 1 tackled some of the most common proximate causes of ‘streetism’ as identified during preliminary analytical work. In particular, efforts to keep children in school were supported because dropping out of school is often a precursor of family abandonment or expulsion. Activities were concentrated on the communes of the greater Kinshasa metropolitan area that are most often the point of origin for street children (the so-called ‘supplying zones’). It should be noted that during the design stage, a strong emphasis on prevention was requested by NGOs active with street children, as this was considered a neglected but fundamental issue—dealing with the stock of street children is not enough, what matters is stemming the flow. 12 48. Component 2 financed a set of activities aimed at improving coverage and quality of services for street children, with special attention to street girls. Over 15,000 children were reached overall and 10,000 (41 percent girls) benefited from an integrated package of support, including shelter, health, and education. Activities focused on the communes with the highest concentration of street children. Street educators and informal Listening Centers offered the first contact for children with the ‘regular’ world and caring adults, thus representing the entry point for other services. Transit Centers provided, in addition to immediate protection, access to a number of services with longer-term objectives such as psychosocial counseling and remedial classes. While the project envisioned providing vocational training to the children, in part based upon the belief that family reunification would be easier when the child possessed skills that make him/her an economic asset to the household, the reality was that vocational education requires that a child be 15 years or above to participate and only 11 percent of the beneficiaries met the age requirement. Over 5,000 children (48 percent girls) reestablished contact with their families and of these, over 4,000 (29 percent girls) returned to live with their families. 49. Component 3 supported capacity-building activities to promote increased institutional capacity and better coordination mechanisms and systems, which in turn were expected to contribute to the continuation of the interventions beyond the life of the project. Capacity- building activities could have further benefited MINAS by systematically involving social workers in the supervision of field activities. (c) Relevance of Implementation (Substantial) 50. Despite a slow start, implementation performed solidly under very difficult circumstances—the challenging post-conflict context, the high turnover rate of project staff, and the complex institutional arrangements. The task team had a solid rationale for making the Social Fund responsible for fiduciary management at the design stage. Adequate adjustments were made through a restructuring to address challenges in implementing these arrangements. 3.2 Achievement of Project Development Objectives Rating: Substantial 51. Given the limited prior experience of the Bank in this field of work, indicator targets were established based on cost estimates elaborated with input from MINAS, UNICEF, and other key implementing partners. More than 17,293 beneficiaries (out of a target of 9,450) directly benefited from the project, suggesting that the cost estimate may have been conservative. The Street Children Project performance at closing indicates that it overcame implementation challenges and surpassed the expected target on all its outcome indicators without needing an extension as indicated in the results framework included the datasheet of this ICR. The direct number of beneficiaries exceeds the target by 45 percent, even though the project did not meet the sub-indicator target on the number of NGOs and government workers trained. 3.3 Efficiency Rating: Substantial 52. The overall efficiency of the project is rated Substantial with the following caveats: (a) as stated in the PAD, cost-benefit analysis at appraisal was not possible due to limited available 13 data and (b) a comparison of the economic costs, financial costs, and cost-effectiveness of the Street Children Project with other donor-funded interventions (both within the DRC and in the region) is rendered complicated by variations in the packages of assistance and models of delivery. 53. The proposed rating is informed by the project’s successful adoption of a number of measures to promote efficiency in implementation and delivery. In accordance with the WB Social Protection Strategy, the project supported the establishment of guidelines, norms, standards, and minimum floors for prevention and assistance activities based on findings from a number of assessments (including a study on unitary costs). The approach of the NGO with the most successful model was generally promoted, thus helping both the government and the partners capitalize on the learning opportunities provided by the project. Supervision documents reviewed in preparing this ICR reflect overall improvements in the quality of the assistance delivered against a number of indicators, including the nutritional packages (and frequency of meals); the standards for family reunification; the rehabilitation of infrastructures within which the children were hosted; and the quality of the school kits. 54. The project made judicious use of financial resources. NGOs with extensive prior experience street children were recruited as implementing partners. They relied on their network to operate in the geographical areas of intervention. They also benefited from bulk purchasing for some inputs, such as school kits, which helped lower their costs. 55. The project administrative costs, including the PIU salaries, rent, transportation amounted to 6 percent of total project expenditures. The PIU team was small and there was frequent staff turnover, leaving some positions vacant for a number of months, both of these factors contributed to the low administrative ratio of the project. 56. The project exceeded its targets with no extension and a reasonable Bank Budget, which is another indication of the overall efficiency in delivering and supervising this intervention. While the project was high performing with regard to meeting its targeted results, the scale of the project budget was not sufficient to adequately address the scale of the street children population in Kinshasa, which continues to grow despite the efforts of this project, given the steady arrival of migrants from other parts of the DRC. 3.4 Justification of Overall Outcome Rating Rating: Satisfactory 57. While the project got off to a slow start and continued to suffer from management challenges and the difficult post-conflict operating environment, the project design as well as the dedication and capacity of stakeholders/implementing partners ensured that the outcome indicators were surpassed. 3.5 Overarching Themes, Other Outcomes, and Impacts (a) Poverty Impacts, Gender Aspects, and Social Development 58. Poverty impacts. The individuals, households, and neighborhoods targeted by this project were living in extreme poverty. By investing in formal and informal education, the 14 project helped street children and other vulnerable children become adults who are more productive. By reuniting street children with their families, the project helped children increase their likelihood of future well-being and by educating vulnerable parents about the rights of their children and their responsibility to protect their children, the project likely helped keep vulnerable children living at home rather than exposed to negative risks and a grim future on the streets. 59. Gender aspects. Of the 15,586 street children who benefited from at least one service, 29 percent were girls. The project made a concerted effort (both through its design and implementation approach) to reach out to girls who represent one fourth of the street children population, because of their acute vulnerability. As a result, an estimated 41 percent of the 10,000 street children who benefited from a holistic package of services were girls. An estimated 48 percent of the over 5,000 street children who reconnected to their families were girls; however, only 29 percent of those who returned to live with their families were girls. Since female street children represent only about one-quarter of street children,7 the high rates at which the project benefited girls confirms that the project had a gender bias toward girls. Some centers exclusively served girls and educated them on reproductive health. Girls who were pregnant or living in the street with a child received education on how to care for their children and avoid unwanted pregnancies in the future. While centers that specialized in serving girls, particularly those with children were largely staffed by women, overall, the staff of the NGOs was predominantly male. This was particularly true at the level of senior staff, , with only one of 12 NGO partners led by a woman. 60. Social development. Both the prevention and assistance components contributed to the social development of the beneficiaries, with the prevention component assisting low-income parents to enroll their children in school, and the assistance component providing wrap-around social services to street children, including pyscho-social support, formal and informal education, health care, and vocational training. (b) Institutional Change/Strengthening 61. The implementing partners, particularly the local NGOs, are institutionally stronger as a result of the project. The local NGOs contracted to implement the project gained experience working with Bank funds, which is expected to translate into effective management of other donor funds in the future. During the implementation period, the NGO partners benefited from several training programs on procurement, M&E, fundraising, and micro-savings. The NGOs also had opportunities to learn from one another and to shape best-practice manuals regarding family reunification. 62. MINAS benefited from several capacity-building opportunities. Four of its full-time staff worked as staff for the Project Management Unit, which built skills in project management, and M&E. Likewise, the project assisted MINAS to lead a participatory process to define norms and standards of service delivery for vulnerable children and to develop a manual on family reunification processes. As a result of the partnership with the USAID-financed CapacityPlus Project and UNICEF, as well as funding from a complementary grant from the Rapid Social 7 UNICEF. 2006. Recensement des enfants de la rue de la ville province de Kinshasa. 15 Response Fund, the norms and standards were disseminated in all 11 provinces through a series of workshops. MINAS staff at the headquarters were trained as trainers. The whole exercise was an unprecedented experience for the ministry and feedback was enthusiastic: central staff felt empowered and provincial staff were grateful for a rare opportunity to receive guidance on quality control and monitoring. These tools will serve the ministry and civil society for years to come. MINAS also played a key role in negotiating with other sector ministries to provide services to street children and other vulnerable children at no cost to the beneficiary. (c) Other Unintended Outcomes and Impacts (positive or negative) n.a. 3.6 Summary of Findings of Beneficiary Survey and/or Stakeholder Workshops 63. On April8-9, 2015, a workshop was held, bringing together 40 representatives of the government and non-government actors as well as the World Bank, UNICEF, the Embassy of Canada, all involved in the DRC Street Children Project. The primary purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the successes and challenges achieved by the project and to explore ways to prolong the project activities beyond the planned August 31, 2015 close-out date. The workshop was also led to a formal request by the project actors to ask donors to approve additional funding that would include a continuation of the activities started in Kinshasa and an expansion of the program to other parts of the country, including the cities of Lubumbashi, Kisangani, Mbuji- Mayi and Kikwit. The additional financing would also reinforce the capacity of the Ministry of Social Affairs, known by its acronym in French as MINAS, so better care for street children. 64. After acknowledging the slow start-up of the project, participants celebrated the progress made in achieving the planned project results, both in the area of prevention and assistance. The success in reintegrating street children with their families was highlighted. Concerning capacity building for MINAS, the participants noted the national standards on working with vulnerable that MINAS developed with project support, the training provided to MINAS 160 social assistants working to serve vulnerable children, and the donation of vehicles, computers and other equipment to MINAS. 65. Through group discussions, the participants identified the most promising interventions under each component and their recommendations, should additional funding become available. The team that worked on the prevention component highlighted the following three interventions as most effective in preventing child abandonment:  The Local Child Protection Committees, who are able to identify children at risk of abandonment due to abuse or neglect. These committees should be expanded to other neighborhoods and strengthened.  The educational campaigns using different types of communication strategies, including radio, interactive theatre, home visits, and educational chats. These campaigns helped to build awareness of the Child Protection Law.  School enrollment for children at risk helps to minimize the risk that children will end up in the street. Vocational training for older children helps them to take care of themselves, which is particularly important for vulnerable girls. 16 4. Assessment of Risk to Development Outcome Rating: Significant 66. The overall risk to the project achieving its development outcome is rated Significant, due to factors such as the overall operating environment (which remains characteristic of most low-capacity post-conflict contexts), political volatility, and low government commitment to provide adequate budget support to MINAS so that it can to continue to provide, monitor, and coordinate interventions for street children. 67. The main risks to the long-term development outcome would be the availability of resources and the NGO’s capacity to mobilize funds to continue supporting this type of intervention. In reformulating its strategic engagement in the DRC, the Bank has decided to reduce the number of its operations and to focus on key priority sectors. The issue of street children is expected to be addressed by the broader umbrella of interventions that are designed to improve access of vulnerable populations to basic social services and to protect human capital. Hence, no funds were allocated to specifically extend support through the Street Children Project. 68. The project did invest in training its partner NGOs in collaborative fundraising to prolong both the work in prevention and assistance initiated under the project. Likewise, it provided a training in micro-savings, an intervention that could address some of the underlying economic causes of children ending up in the street. 69. The project has had very positive results in improving the delivery mechanisms of prevention and support services for street children in Kinshasa. However, most of the root causes of the street children phenomenon are well beyond the scope of the project. While MINAS’ capacity to respond to the needs of street children is much stronger than it was at the beginning of the project, budgetary limitations and severe capacity constraints continue to prevent it from properly addressing the needs of vulnerable households. Until the government makes serious gains in its fight against extreme poverty and a strong financial commitment to address the plight of street children, this issue is likely to persist. Delivery mechanisms of prevention and assistance interventions to this group have, however, significantly improved as a result of the project. 5. Assessment of Bank and Borrower Performance 5.1 Bank Performance (a) Bank Performance in Ensuring Quality at Entry Rating: Moderately Satisfactory 70. The Bank team worked rapidly and closely with the government and key stakeholders to propose a well-designed operation for Board approval in less than 6 months. The limited institutional experience with this type of interventions was counterbalanced by assigning a sociologist with in-depth expertise on child protection to co-lead project preparation. This contributed to the strong design of the project. 17 71. There were some shortcomings in ensuring readiness to implement. Fewer conditions for project effectiveness and the availability of project preparation funds would have ensured a faster readiness to implement. The institutional arrangements also had to be negotiated, leading to delays in the effective start of project activities. However, the strategic partnership with implementing agencies that had an established track record serving street children and the solid technical design of the operation ensured the rapid delivery of services once the contracts were signed. (b) Quality of Supervision (including of fiduciary and safeguards policies) Rating: Satisfactory 72. Over the life of the project, the Bank conducted 18 missions, 6 of which were focused on financial management issues. The quality of project support and supervision improved during the project cycle. In the first year of implementation, the PIU required far more support than it received. Eventually, a more experienced task team leader, who had also been in the lead during the design phase, took over the supervision of the project. While many of the internal management problems within the PIU continued, once the NGOs received their grants, the project began to produce results. A country-based consultant with considerable experience in child protection was hired to provide continuous support to the PIU and took a very active role both in monitoring and in providing hands-on assistance. The focus of Bank supervision at this stage was to make sure that the NGOs received both the technical assistance and financial resources needed on time to address challenges and bottlenecks as they arose. In its completion report, the PIU lauded the Bank for its flexibility, responsiveness, and creativity in addressing implementation challenges. (c) Justification of Rating for Overall Bank Performance Rating: Moderately Satisfactory 73. After a delayed start, the project produced very positive results despite a very challenging operational context. This reflects a good design and the generally high quality of implementation support provided to the service providers. 5.2 Borrower Performance (a) Government Performance Rating: Moderately Satisfactory 74. The Ministry of Social Affairs established the Project Steering Committee on February 14, 2011. It included representatives from the ministries of Social Affairs, Education, and Justice as well as representatives from UNICEF, the provincial and local government, and the NGO network serving street children. The steering committee had a strategic oversight role to ensure that the project was operating successfully. It was responsible for the approval of annual plans and budgets and was to assist the PIU in M&E as well as fundraising. The committee held ten meetings, fulfilled its responsibilities to approve annual plans and budgets, and assisted in the recruitment of project staff. Unfortunately, after MINAS was reorganized in September 2014, the post of ‘minister’ was left vacant. As a result, no further meetings were convened until the project closing date. 18 75. While MINAS contributed to delays in project start by not actively engaging in negotiations to finalize the MoU with the Social Fund, it played a constructive and active role in providing oversight and participating in supervision activities once the project became operational. In line with the duties assigned to MINAS in the Financing Agreement, the ministry—albeit with some delays—(a) ensured that project activities were consistent with local laws; (b) liaised with other entities including the Ministries of Gender, Justice, Health, and Education and the national police; (c) coordinated with relevant stakeholders during project implementation; and (d) provided technical support when solicited during implementation. This included leading the development and dissemination of the standards and norms for working with street children and procedures for reunifying street children and their families. 76. MINAS staff at the commune level also coordinated with the service providers to supervise implementation. In the final year of the project, MINAS placed two social workers from its communal offices to provide additional field support for the project and to build project management skills. MINAS representatives also participated actively in training provided by the project, which helped build closer personal relationships with many of the NGOs working with street children. (b) Implementing Agency or Agencies Performance The Project Implementation Unit Rating: Moderately Satisfactory 77. In addition to the shortcomings described above, the PIU performance was affected by a high turnover rate of technical staff and a lack of team cohesion. Despite these challenging circumstances, the project achieved good results because of the strong capacity of the NGOs and MINAS’ commitment to the project success. Overall, the PIU respected the competitive partner selection process and ended up contracting with the most experienced NGO serving street children and vulnerable groups in the city. The implementing NGOs reported difficult working relations with the PIU in the early stages of the project; however, as it learned to operate under Bank rules and regulations, the PIU managed to transfer funds to the NGO partners on time. The project supported activities that helped strengthen the relationship among the implementing partners and MINAS while helping to institutionalize their work. The Implementing NGOs Rating: Satisfactory 78. The success in achieving most of the project targets under the intermediary indicators under Components 1 and 2 and all of the outcome indicators for the project would not have been possible without the very satisfactory performance of the NGOs that were responsible for implementing project activities with funds and capacity building from the PIU. 79. The PIU used a competitive process to select the implementing NGOs, which was successful in identifying the best potential partners, who not only had a track record in serving street children but also had sufficiently strong management capacity to meet the rigorous requirements of Bank financing. In all, twelve NGOs were funded by the project, three international NGOs (Save the Children, War Child, and CESVI) and nine local NGOs. Three 19 NGOs were solely involved in prevention activities; eight solely in assistance activities; and one, Save the Children, was involved in both prevention and assistance activities. Save the Children also helped build the capacity of two local NGOs, Chemin Neuf and ADSSE, so that they could receive grants directly from the project, rather than work as its subcontractors. 80. A total of US$5.9 million in subgrants were transferred to these 12 NGOs, of which they spent 98 percent. Of the total, 34 percent was spent on prevention activities and 66 percent on assistance, in line with projections. Over the course of the project, most NGOs benefited from two grants each. The PIU worked closely with the NGOs to improve the quality of their proposals before they finalized the first round of contracts. This contributed to some of the delays in getting the project fully operational. During the first round of subgrants, the PIU gave the same amount of funding per commune for prevention activities, without taking into account the different population sizes. They adjusted their strategy during the second round of grants. The average grant per commune for prevention was US$405,500, varying in size from just US$100,000 up to over US$600,000, based upon the population of the targeted commune. Subgrants for assistance projects were slightly larger, averaging US$486,000 and ranging in size from US$105,000 to over US$500,000 based upon the level of experience of the beneficiary NGO. The two local NGOs coached by Save the Children, received the smallest grants. (c) Justification of Rating for Overall Borrower Performance Rating: Moderately Satisfactory 81. The Bank and MINAS collaborated to strengthen the PIU so that it was able to successfully implement the project despite some internal weaknesses, particularly evident during the early part of the project period. 6. Lessons Learned 82. Establish strategic partnerships to capitalize on learning and strengthen government response. Tackling the issue of street children is a relatively new field for the Bank, especially in Africa. By working through experienced NGOs partners, the Bank seized the opportunity to learn about and scale up good practices and help the government engage productively with NGOs to jointly develop standards of practice appropriate to the local context while informing the design of future Bank projects. In doing so, the project made a long-lasting contribution to the sector. 83. Investing in street children prevention should include linkages to economic interventions. Economic interventions such as micro-savings provide an effective way to assist low-income families to gradually accumulate funds that can be used to finance school fees or to overcome other types of financial shocks, which may lead to instability within the household that eventually lead to children being in the street. Micro-savings also promote community cohesion, helping vulnerable households provide moral support to one another and, in turn, defuse tensions and resolve problems. Future street children projects could facilitate linkages to economic interventions targeting risk households and those receiving their children who had been living on the street. 20 84. New strategies are required to reach older street children. One of the few intermediary indicator targets that the project did not meet was the number of children who benefited from participation in a vocational training program. This was largely because the age requirement to participate in vocational training is 15 years and very few of the children living in the street were 15 years and above. The project found that many of the older children, who had once lived in the street, were living in group-houses that they had organized themselves and paid for with the earnings they made through their work in the street. These youngsters were less inclined to take advantage of drop-in centers, making them more difficult to find and serve. Future projects could link this population group to youth interventions geared toward addressing their specific needs. 85. Use existing ministry staff to expand the capacity of the PIU. The PIU expanded its M&E capacity by involving social assistants already trained by MINAS to work with street children. These seconded staff improved the PIU’s capacity to verify the quality of data its subgrantees were reporting in their quarterly reports. This exchange also helped build the M&E capacity of some of the existing MINAS staff, who can continue to use these skills now that the project has ended. 86. Long-term sustainability of results depends upon government prioritizing investments in social protection. While the Government of the DRC has made progress in developing policies that promote social protection, it has yet to make the budgetary investments necessary to transform policies into reality. MINAS ability to continue the work begun under this project depends upon it being allocated sufficient resources to continue supporting NGOs to meet and exceed the standards that it helped develop during this project. MINAS is allocated only 1 percent of the national budget compared to 4 percent, on average, across Africa. 7. Comments on Issues Raised by Borrower/Implementing Agencies/Partners (a) Borrower/Implementing Agencies 87. In its completion report, the government team made the following observations:  “The institutional arrangement of having the PIU report both to the Social Fund and MINAS was not only administratively cumbersome, but may have resulted in missed opportunities for building the capacity of the Ministry team.” (Borrower’s report, p.51) o The ICR finds that the choice of institutional arrangement was well founded in that it was informed by the low capacity of MINAS at the time of project preparation. However, early signs that these arrangements would have been difficult to implement should have led to an earlier recruitment of fiduciary staff exclusively assigned to the management of the Street Children Project, even if it meant higher operational costs. A review of institutional arrangements indicates that even with the Social Fund being responsible for fiduciary management, the ministry team benefited from numerous opportunities for technical capacity building (see paragraphs 43 and 62 of the present document). 21  “The US$10 million budget was not enough to adequately address the street children issue in Kinshasa.” (Borrower’s report, p.51) o After reviewing the project performance in meeting its key outcome indicators, the present document concludes that the intervention effectively met its objective of improving delivery mechanisms of prevention and support services of street children interventions. The ICR underscores that “adequately addressing the street children issue in Kinshasa” was beyond the scope of the project.  “In the original operating manual, the project envisioned providing some small amount of funding to the schools that received the vulnerable children identified by the project; however, after signing agreements with the partner NGOs, the project changed its strategy, requiring the schools to receive the students without any form of compensation. This created some problems in enrolling students and caused friction between the schools and the implementing NGOs seeking to support beneficiaries. There should have been more consultation on this change.” (Borrower’s report, p.52) o The ICR concurs that wider consultations should have been conducted to ensure a smoother process in changing strategies.  “The project failed to take full advantage of MINAS’s capacity. For example, in each of the targeted communes, MINAS employs 8–14 social assistants, whose effectiveness is limited by their lack of resources. These individuals could have expanded the reach of the project, if they had been better integrated into its activities. Likewise, MINAS has some infrastructures in these communes that could have been utilized for the project, but were not. Instead, many of the NGOs who were engaged as implementing used project funds to pay rent for the facilities in which they delivered services to street children.” (Borrower’s report, p.52) o After a review of the budget allocation between the different components of the project in relation to the needs, the ICR concludes that the allocation to capacity-building activities was adequate. Systematically involving social workers in implementation would have resulted in higher project costs. The Street Children Project complemented Capacityplus, a USAID-funded project that sought to support social workers in the country. However, it could have established more formal linkages with that project.  “The collaborative work that the project facilitated in articulating a five-stage process for re-integrating street children back into their families was key to success of the project in helping over 4,000 children return to live with their families.” (Borrower’s report, p. 54) o The present ICR concurs that the elaboration of norms and standards for service delivery to street children, including a manual for family reunification, is one of the key achievements of this project. 22 Annex 1. Project Costs and Financing (a) Project Costs By Components (amounts in US$, Million) Appraisal Actual/Latest Estimate Percentage of Project Components and Activities Estimates (US$, (US$, Appraisal million) million) Prevention Community mobilization and awareness 1.90 1.65 87 Schooling opportunities 0.80 0.38 47 Radio programs 0.40 0.48 120 Subtotal 3.10 2.51 81.00 Assistance Subtotal 4.30 4.20 98.00 Capacity building, coordination, and project management Capacity building (including coordination) 0.90 1.49 165 Monitoring and evaluation 0.60 0.81 135 Project management 1.10 0.60 54 Subtotal 2.60 2.90 112.00 Total Baseline Cost 10.00 9.60 96.00 Physical contingencies 0.05 0.05 0.00 Price contingencies 0.05 0.05 0.00 Total/Project cost 10.10 9.70 96.00 Front-end fee Project Preparation Fund 0.00 0.00 0.00 Front-end fee IBRD 0.00 0.00 0.00 Total Financing Required 10.10 9.70 96.00 (b) Financing Source of Funds Type of Appraisal Estimate Actual/Rates Percentage of Cofinancing (US$, million) Estimates (US$, Appraisal million) Borrower n.a. 0.00 0.00 0.00 IDA grant n.a. 10.00 9.60 96.00 Subtotal 10.00 9.60 96.00 23 Annex 2. Outputs by Component In terms of intermediary results, the project achieved its target on all but one of its intermediary results indicators (the number of children benefiting from vocational skill training). The implementing NGOs found it difficult to find street children meeting the age requirement of 15 years to enroll in skills training. Many of the older youth are believed to live in group-houses that they pay for by pooling the funds they earn during the day. They are, therefore, less likely to be in touch with the centers run by NGOs. Results Indicator Indicator Results as of Exceeds or Results Target August 31, 2015 (Below) Achieved as % Target of Target (%) Outcome Indicators 1. Child protection committees 75% 100% 133 that are active (Percentage) 2. Target households who correctly recall key messages about children’s rights from the 70% 87% 124 campaigns financed under the project (Percentage) 3. Children at risk provided with education or remedial 5,529 education opportunities 2,500 3,029 221 40.2% girls financed under the project (disaggregated by sex) 4. Street children offered access 10,057 to comprehensive support 5,500 4,557 183 41% girls services8 5. Street children having restored relationships9 with 5,335 800 4,535 667 their families (number 48% girls disaggregated by sex) 6. Direct project beneficiaries (total number, % female) (a) Children supported per type 15,586 8,000 7,586 195 of services 29% girls (b) Community leaders and 800 1,204 404 151 authorities sensitized10 8 Comprehensive support services include at least three of the following: education, health, shelter (may be temporary), psychosocial support, vocational training, and family reunification. 9 Based on the number of children giving or receiving at least two visits to/from their family per year. 10 These may include neighborhood chiefs, religious authorities (pastors, priests), school principals, presidents of women associations and other community-based organizations, and government representatives. 24 Results Indicator Indicator Results as of Exceeds or Results Target August 31, 2015 (Below) Achieved as % Target of Target (%) (c) NGOs and government 650 503 (147) 77 workers trained Intermediate Results Indicators Component 1 – Prevention 1. Radio broadcasts on child 600 596 (4) 99 protection (number per year) 2. Educational group discussions 550 488 (62) 89 3.(a) Child protection committees established (a) 72 (a) 75 3 (a) 104 (Number) (b) Child protection committees (b) 62 (b) 52 (10) (b) 8411 strengthened 4. Community events on children’s rights and parental responsibility (for example, 550 488 (62) 89 interactive theatre - number per year) Component 2 – Assistance 5. Street children receiving one or more services from the transit 15,586 8,000 7,586 195 centers (number disaggregated 41% girls by sex) 6.(a) Street children benefitting (a) 1,660 (57% (a) 6,741 (5,081) from skills training; (b) formal girls) 25 or nonformal education (b) 6,294 (54% 93 (b) 6,784 (490) (number disaggregated by sex) girls) Component 3 - Capacity building, coordination, and project management 7. NGOs/FBOs and specialized public services supported by the project achieving at least 90% of 70% 100% 30% 143 the agreed performance indicators (%) 8. National standards for service delivery to street children Yes Yes developed and validated (Yes/No) 9. A national multisectoral coordination committee for the Yes Yes protection of OVC is established 11 The number of committees operating, while slightly lower than the target, is equal to the number of targeted neighborhoods. 25 Results Indicator Indicator Results as of Exceeds or Results Target August 31, 2015 (Below) Achieved as % Target of Target (%) and operational (Yes/No) 10. A database established and managed by DISPE, with support of DEP, to monitor and coordinate ongoing children’s Yes Yes rights interventions as well as to capture the number of beneficiaries per category of service is established (Yes/No) 11. Annual evaluation of the Yes Yes effectiveness and costs of different prevention and support services. (Yes/No) 26 Annex 3. Economic and Financial Analysis 1. Overall efficiency of the project is rated Substantial as detailed in the main text of this ICR. According to the PAD, cost-benefit analysis at appraisal was not possible due to limited available data. Indeed, a cost-benefit analysis would require data that are normally not available even in countries with far more developed statistical systems.  On the benefit side, one would need to consider (a) increase in lifetime earnings due to increased education of (former) street children; (b) value of improved health status both with regard to increased productivity and with regard to reduction in cost of care; (c) reduced cost of police and judiciary activity involving street children (arrests, jailing, trials, imprisonment); (d) reduced property loss due to street children’s activities (theft, vandalism); (e) reduction in health costs borne by the children themselves (for example, as consequence of beatings, sexual violence, pregnancies, HIV/AIDS) and by those aggressed by the children; (f) reduction in losses incurred by businesses as customers stay away if street children are around; and (g) reduction in the spread of HIV/AIDS.  On the cost side, beside the cost of the program, one should add the earnings by street children (for example, most street girls engage in sex work and would therefore lose those earnings if they got off the streets). 2. Lack of data does not allow computing returns to education, and reliable estimates of the other costs would require substantial investment. Moreover, the project attempted to reduce or eliminate conditions of extreme abuse and of substantive violation of human rights whose monetary quantification would be arbitrary. 27 Annex 4. Bank Lending and Implementation Support/Supervision Processes (a) Task Team Members Names Title Unit Lending Lucie Lufiauluisu Bobola Program Assistant AFCC2 Bourama Diaite Senior Procurement Specialist GGO07 John A. Elder Operations Adviser AFRDE Astania Kamau Program Assistant GSP05 Jean Charles Amon Kra Senior Financial Management Specialist GGO13 Anne Mossige Senior Social Protection Specialist AFTSW – HIS Maurizia Tovo Lead Social Protection Specialist GSP07 Lisette Khonde Social Protection Specialist GSP07 Supervision/ICR Maurizia Tovo Lead Social Protection Specialist GSP07 Lisette Khonde Social Protection Specialist GSPO7 Jeanine Kashosi Nkakala Team Assistant AFCC2 Lydie Billey Program Assistant GSP07 Philipe Mahele Liwoke Senior Procurement Specialist GGODR Lanssina Traore Procurement Specialist GGODR Angelo Donou Financial Management Specialist GGODR Bourama Diaite Senior Procurement Specialist GGODR Pauline Bossuki Sociologist DRC Gilberte Kedote Housounou Child Protection Specialist Jean-Charles Amon Kra Senior Financial Management Specialist GGO13 Fanta Toure Social Protection Specialist; ICR team Leader GSPO7 Catherine Gibbons Consultant, ICR Author (b) Staff Time and Cost Staff Time and Cost (Bank Budget Only) Stage of Project Cycle US$, thousands (including No. of staff weeks travel and consultant costs) Lending 35.88 303,096.28 Total: 35.88 303,096.28 Supervision/ICR 132.72 617,406.43 Total: 132.72 617,406.43 28 Annex 5. Beneficiary Survey Results/Stakeholders’ Assessment 1. On April 8–9, 2015, a workshop was held, bringing together 40 representatives of the government and nongovernment actors as well as the Bank, UNICEF, the Embassy of Canada, all involved in the DRC Street Children Project. The primary purpose of the meeting was to reflect on the successes and challenges achieved by the project and to explore ways to prolong the project activities beyond the planned August 31, 2015 closeout date. The workshop also led to a formal request for funding by the project actors, who asked donors to approve additional funding that would include a continuation of the activities started in Kinshasa and an expansion of the program to other parts of the country, including the cities of Lubumbashi, Kisangani, Mbuji-Mayi, and Kikwit. The additional financing would also reinforce the capacity of the Ministry of Social Affairs, known by its acronym in French as MINAS, to provide better care for street children. 2. After acknowledging the slow start-up of the project, participants celebrated the progress made in achieving the planned project results, both in the area of prevention and assistance. The success in reintegrating street children with their families was highlighted. Concerning capacity building for MINAS, the participants noted the national standards on working with vulnerable that MINAS developed with project support; the training provided to MINAS’ 160 social assistants working to serve vulnerable children; and the donation of vehicles, computers, and other equipment to MINAS. 3. Through group discussions, the participants identified the most promising interventions under each component and their recommendations, should additional funding become available. The team that worked on the prevention component highlighted the following three interventions as most effective in preventing child abandonment:  The Local Child Protection Committees, who are able to identify children at risk of abandonment due to abuse or neglect. These committees should be expanded to other neighborhoods and strengthened.  The educational campaigns using different types of communication strategies, including radio, interactive theatre, home visits, and educational chats. These campaigns helped build awareness of the Child Protection Law.  School enrollment for children at risk helps minimize the risk that children will end up in the street. Vocational training for older children helps them take care of themselves, which is particularly important for vulnerable girls. 4. When asked how the end of the project would affect their prevention activities, the group responded as follows:  More children will end up in the street and those who have been reunited with their families may return to the street.  Adults will continue to mistreat their children. 29  At-risk children will drop out of school. 5. With regard to alternatives for assuring the sustainability of these gains that do not involve new project financing, the participants responded as follows:  Have MINAS take responsibility for the continuation of the program.  Ask other donors to finance the project.  Advocate for free education for all.  Continue to strengthen the Local Child Protection Committees, using MINAS social assistance workers. 6. When asked how to improve access to education for children living in the street or otherwise vulnerable, the participants responded as follows:  Strengthen the partnership between MINAS and the Ministry of Education and other ministries involved in vocational and nonformal education, literacy training, and civic education.  Create new mechanisms to finance the education of at risk children as part of the new financing.  Organize school canteens to help maintain vulnerable children in school.  Assist the parents of at-risk children to start income-generating projects. 7. When asked what strategies were most effective in reintegrating street children into society, the assistance work group responded as follows:  Adopt the five-step approach of Identification, Documentation, Mediation, Reinsertion, and Follow-up.  Offer a comprehensive packet of services.  Provide ongoing advice to the family and the community in which they live.  Conduct numerous counseling sessions and mediations with reunified families.  Make frequent follow-up visits to reunified families to ensure a sustainable result. 8. Their concerns about how the end of project financing will affect the children they serve included the following:  The halt in the family reunification process 30  Destabilization of the children served by the existing centers and of the organizations that operate them  Decrease in available services for street children  Return of reunified children to the street due to the lack of ongoing financing 9. Their thoughts on alternative ways in which the project could be continued included the following:  Request financing from the various ministries that are responsible for the well-being of children, including MINAS, the Ministry of Gender, Education, Health, Interior, and Justice.  Identify other organizations that have financing and refer the children to be cared for by them. 10. If additional funding were available, the participants working on the assistance component recommended that it be used as follows:  Assist the NGOs delivering support to the street children to start income-generating projects.  Assist reunified families to start income-generating projects to minimize the chance that their children will return to the street.  Support the family reunification process by giving them sufficient resources to finance their social needs.  Involve MINAS social workers in the family mediation and reunification process for vulnerable children. 11. Their thoughts about how to best improve access to education for children living in a difficult situation included the following:  Rehabilitate and equip Centers for Social Promotion and Centers for Integrated Social Action to deliver educational services.  Improve the partnership with the Ministry of Education to ensure that children in need are accepted into their schools.  Build the capacity of teachers so they have a better understanding of how to treat vulnerable children without stigmatizing them.  Support and expand the centers that offer nonformal education designed to assist children who have dropped out of school to catch up. 31 12. Asked how a shared plan for delivering food, health care, and security to all street children could best be delivered, the group responded as folllows:  Put together a joint committee involving representatives of civil society and all of the ministries that share responsibility for the well-being of children, including MINAS, Agriculture, Gender, Education, Health, Interior, Justice, Planning, and Youth.  Designate a point person in each ministry who can facilitate street children’s access to their services. 13. A third working group explored the state budget and disbursements that go to civil society organizations that work on social protection. They reported that in 2013, the state had allocated US$8.6 million and disbursed only US$4.5 million to MINAS, of which 89 percent went to pay MINAS salaries and 6 percent was disbursed as subsidies to the NGOs. When this group was asked how it would use additional funding, if it were to materialize, they gave two options:  Expand the program into all communes of Kinshasa.  Expand the program into other large cities in the country (Lubumbashi, Kisangani, Mbuji-mayi, Kikwit, and so on) 14. The workshop ended with a session to identify short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations to the government of the DRC and to the Bank. A summary of the responses obtained is given here. 15. Short-term recommendations for the government:  Enter into a dialogue with the Bank to request phase two for the Street Children Project.  Mobilize support from other financial and technical partners for street children and social protection more generally.  Strengthen MINAS so that it is better able to serve street children, including the construction and rehabilitation and equipping of Social Promotion Centers, supply drugs and medical supplies to clinics that serve vulnerable children, and reinforce the capacity of the INTS.  Ask the Bank for sufficient funds to expand the program to all the communes of Kinshasa and to other large cities with large numbers of street children.  Provide MINAS will enough budget to sustain the work carried out under the Street Children Project. 16. Medium-term recommendations for the government: 32  Provide MINAS a budget for investment in the reconstruction or construction of facilities serving vulnerable populations, particularly Social Promotion Centers and Old People’s Homes.  Transform the Street Children Project into a national program to care for vulnerable children.  Finance the new program from the national budget.  Disburse the full budget allocation to MINAS every year. 17. Long-term recommendations for the government:  Develop strategies to fight the underlying causes of the street children phenomenon.  Rehabilitate and equip MINAS’ infrastructure designed for vulnerable people.  Improve the disbursement rate of funds allocated to MINAS. 18. Short-term recommendations to the Bank:  Provide a cost extension to the existing project for two years, to give the government time to take over financial responsibility.  Maintain a dialogue with the government to expand the Street Children Project in all communes of Kinshasa and all large cities in the country. 19. Medium- and long-term recommendations to the Bank:  Provide financing to MINAS to allow it to modernize its infrastructure designed to care for vulnerable populations.  Strengthen MINAS’ technical capacity.  Strengthen the financing of baseline studies for MINAS to help it improve its programs. 33 Annex 6. Summary of Borrower's ICR and/or Comments on Draft ICR 1. The Bank-funded Street Children Project was implemented by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo over a period of five years, from February 28, 2001 until August 31, 2015, with a grace period until December 31, 2015. 2. During the implementation period, the project had to overcome a number of challenges, including  a complex institutional arrangement;  the lack of project preparation funding;  the project becoming active four months after approval;  the DRC Social Fund’s decision to stop playing its fiduciary management role, which led to a restructuring of the project toward the end of the implementation period;  the management challenges that the project faced during the start-up period;  the turnover of key staff; and  insufficient investment in capacity building for the project staff. 3. Despite these challenges, the project achieved very positive results. Based on different evaluations carried out, the project achieved most of its the outcome and output targets. Among the project achievements, one can point to the delivery of a holistic package of services to 10,057 street children, the reinsertion of 4,099 children into their families, support to the institutional audit of MINAS, the development of national norms and standards on how to care for children living in a difficult situation as well as a national policy note orienting the social protection of vulnerable groups, the construction of a modern shelter for street children, the construction of a meeting room for MINAS, the rehabilitation and furnishing of existing street children shelters, the donation of vehicles and information technology equipment to MINAS, and capacity building for the social assistants working for MINAS and the implementing NGOs. 4. The sustainability of the project gains will depend upon the creativity of MINAS and the partner NGOs to raise additional funding to continue the project activities. 5. Initially, fiduciary management was the responsibility of the DRC Social Fund, until August 2014, when the project was restructured, giving the Street Children Project’s staff responsibility for these functions. The project accounts were regularly audited. According to supervisory mission reports, the funds that were disbursed were used in ways that conformed with the Bank’s directives and with acceptable rules of financial management and accounting. According to audits carried out by international firms, the financial reports accurately reflected reality and cash management was in accordance with the General Accounting Plan of the DRC. 34 6. At the end of the project, a total of US$9,602,694 had been spent, representing 96 percent of the approved budget, leaving an unspent balance of US$343,797. 35 Annex 7. List of Supporting Documents Democratic Republic Of Congo: Street Children Project Hounsounou, Gilberte, et al. 2009. “Etat des lieux des interventions et intervenants ciblant les enfants de la rue à Kinshasa.” Mimeo. Médecins du Monde. 2009. “La rue, c’est la chance? Enquêtes sur l’exploitation et les violences sexuelles des jeunes filles des rues de Kinshasa.” mimeo. Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale, Décembre 2015. Rapport d’achèvement du Project Enfants dits de la Rue (EDR), Version Résumée. Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale, Novembre 2013. Rapport d’évaluation a mi-parcours des sous projets EDR. Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale, Octobre 2015. Evaluation du projet Enfants de la Rue - Composante Prévention: Analyse de l’enquête de référence et de l’enquête finale. Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale, Décembre 2009. Project de décret portant règlementation de l’Action Sociale. Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale, Octobre 2009. Plan d’Action Nationale en faveur des orphelins et enfants vulnérables vivant en RDC (2011-2014 PAN OEV). Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale. 2009. Rapport synthèse du processus RAAP (Rapid Assessment, Analysis and Action Planning)-RDC (draft). Ministères des Affaires Sociales, Action Humanitaire et Solidarité Nationale. 2004. Stratégie nationale de protection sociales des groupes vulnérables. Ministère du Genre, Famille et Enfant. 2009. Loi no. 09/001 du 10 janvier 2009 portant protection de l’enfant. Moran, Ricardo, and Claudio de Moura Castro. 1997. “Street-children and the Inter-American Development Bank: Lessons from Brazil.” Discussion Paper, Social Development Division, Sustainable Development Department, Inter-American Development Bank. Mossige et al. 2003. “Etude pilote de risques et de la vulnérabilité en République Démocratique du Congo. Rapport final. Salmon, Lea et al. 2009. « Les enfants de la rue à Kinshasa.» Mimeo. UNDP. 2008. Statistical Update, UNDP Human Development Report 2007/8. UNICEF. 2006. Recensement des enfants de la rue de la ville province de Kinshasa. 36 World Bank, May 4, 2010. Project Appraisal Document: Democratic Republic of Congo for a Street Children Project. All aide memoires and ISRs for the Street Children Project (P115318). 37 MAP 38