“IFPRI Egypt Webinars” is a special edition of the IFPRI Egypt Seminar Series funded by USAID. This webinar took place under the title of “COVID-19 and social protection: from effective crisis protection to self-reliance”

1. COVID-19 Outbreak: Social
Safety Nets Policy Response
Nahla Zeitoun, Senior Social Protection Specialist, World Bank

2. Introduction
1. The COVID-19 crisis is not only a health crisis, but also an economic, social and employment one: COVID-19
outbreak is causing countries worldwide to increase their prevention and preparedness regimes, aiming to
avoid the virus’ spread. Some of these measures, including quarantines, restrictions on international travel,
disruption of supply chains resulting in economic downturn.
2. Impact channels: include GDP losses, loss of jobs and income/wages, remittances (decline of oil prices may
impact migrants in the Gulf), Suez canal revenues, supply chains, businesses, tourism/aviation sectors hit
hard, prices, household expenditures, etc… There are also special implications on irregular workers and also
on women. Overcoming these effects requires responding to immediate effects on health and offering basic
economic stimulus at the short-run followed by addressing the medium-term effect through additional
programs.
3. Need for Social and Financial Support to Households: Poor and vulnerable households, mostly working in
informal sector will require social assistance to smooth consumption, compensate for higher costs and lost
income to avoid falling further into poverty and resorting to coping strategies with long-term negative
impacts, such as eroding human capital.

3. General Framework
Policy responses should focus on two immediate goals: 1) Health protection measures and 2) economic and
social support on both the demand- and supply-side.
o Social Protection responses should focus on the following actions:
1. Enhance pre-existing social programs by ensuring adequate expansion of financing, adjustment of benefit
levels and eligibility criteria compensate people for loss of income.
2. Ensure that social protection administrative systems are fully inclusive and dynamic with respect to
eligibility.
3. Ensure payments are made through electronic means as much as possible to avoid transmission of
disease at payment or cash out sites.
4. Mitigate impact of higher prices, particularly food prices, and unexpected medical expenses.
5. Design employment retention and/or restoration policies.

4. Social-response measures (as of July, 2020)
-Since March, a total of 200 countries have planned
or put in place 1,055 social protection measures.
-Social assistance (non-contributory transfers) is the
most widely used: A total of 638 measures were
recorded, accounting for 60% of the response
-Nearly 50% of those safety net measures are various
forms of cash-based transfers.
- 16 countries introduced or adapted social assistance
programs in response to COVID-19 in the form of cash
transfer or food assistance.
- 12 countries adapted social insurance programs (paid
leave, health insurance, unemployment benefits…etc.)
- 4 countries adapted labor market measures to support
trainings for job seekers and introduced wage subsidy for
firms.
Global Regional: MENA

5. Social Assistance Social Insurance
Egypt Key Social Response measures
- A one-off payment (EGP 500) offered for 3 months to informal workers
registered at the database of Ministry of Labor and Manpower. Payment were
done through post offices and banks covering 2 million individuals working in
construction, ports, agriculture, fishing, plumber, electrician, etc.
-MoSS announced adding 160,000 households to Takaful and Karama Program
-TKP budget increased during FY21 from EGP18.5 billion to EGP19.3 billion.
-On payments, post offices extended operating hours and rolling out over
different days. Using of E-wallets is also being explored.
-MoSS has increased payments to women community leaders in rural areas
from EGP350 to EGP900 per month.
-Pensions have been. increased by 14
percent in the budget of FY21
-To facilitate payments, pension
payments are scattered over different
days (depending on the level of your
payment) and schools are also being
used as payment sites.
- MOSS is also exploring electronic
payments and E-wallets for pensioners.

6. Proposed Social Response Measures
Broadly, Egypt response could fall under three categories: a) immediate; b) medium-term; and (c) preparedness.
A) Immediate Response: 1. Cash Transfer
o Expand Takaful and Karama Program (TKP) Coverage and/or benefit size:
-Horizontal Expansion: TKP has reached 3.1m households (approx. 11 million individuals). The program could be used to: a) add
new beneficiaries with priority to the poorest governorates and/or governorates that are mostly hit due to tourism slowdown or
highly infected cases; b) revise the Proxy-Means-Testing (PMT) threshold to allow eligibility for more beneficiaries that could be
directly/indirectly affected by COVID-19 outbreak like high-risk groups (elderly and those with chronic diseases, female-headed
households who experience an extra obstacle to work due to social distancing and closure of schools and childcare services,
those who have lost their remittances…etc).
-Vertical Expansion a) increase the benefit size (if there is fiscal space) b) top-up existing cash transfer with an additional
amount for a temporary period (4-6 months) especially in poorest governorates or highly-affected governorates (Luxor,
Hurghada, Menya, Assiut, Damietta and Mansoura) – this was not done.
o Offer a One-time-Off Cash Transfer to Informal workers for a limited period of time: Informal and irregular workers may
suffer economic and welfare losses due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak and risk falling into poverty.

7. Proposed Social Response Measures
❖Payment Mechanisms of Cash Transfer:
-TKP payments are provided through smart cards used at post offices (4,270 offices across the 27 governorates). There is a
room to further minimize human interaction by spreading out payment dates, extending the operating hours of the post
office and considering collapsing a couple of monthly transfers into a single up-front transfer.
- Payments need to be digitalized. Options include: a) opening e-wallets linked to bank accounts or mobile payment providers
so that beneficiaries withdraw cash; b) distribute pre-paid cards/ATM cards that could be at different payment points,
especially in "essential services" stores; c) open basic accounts for all recipients at post office/banks; d) build on existing
infrastructure for post office transfers (using ID) while trying to minimize, to the extent possible, collection of cash at
crowded locations; e) expand outreach of Mezza cards.
❖Targeting:
-To prioritize poor and vulnerable households, MOSS can draw from the existing TKP database which includes 30 million
registered applicants paralleled with conducting cross checks with the Unified National Registry (UNR) led by the
Administrative Control Authority (ACA)
-Build on MoSS Social Registry and UNR to cross check data to identify informal workers in addition to the self-application of
Ministry of Manpower to have a comprehensive database of informal/seasonal workers.

8. Proposed Social Response Measures
2. Expanding Nutrition-Sensitive Assistance Programs
o To ease household expenses, increasing food subsidies is an easily scale-up measure which enjoys high coverage
nationwide with 73m Egyptians owning a food ration card and 83m owning a bread subsidy card – this was not done.
o Offering lunch and school meals, delivered to household with students and children could be also used as immediate-
response measure. Alternatively, and if logistics restrict movement, additional cash amounts can be added on the food
subsidy card for households with children in school – this was not done.
3. Additional Possible Measures:
o Exemption of social insurance contributions for few months for all enterprises
oWage subsidies to businesses heavily affected by COVID-19 outbreak i.e. Tourism and Aviation to avoid laying off workers.
o Promoting Gender-Sensitive Measures. COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to women’s engagement in economic
activities, especially in the informal sector and can exacerbate gender gaps in livelihoods and earnings. It worth mentioning
that 88% of TKP beneficiaries are women so expansion of the program is expected to mostly benefit female beneficiaries
and female-headed households.
o A comprehensive approach of rapid crises response should be backed by clear and comprehensive communication
strategy with the public.

9. Proposed Social Response Measures
B) Medium-term Response:
o Labor intensive public works is a successful interventions at times of crisis, but this can only be launched after the
control of the pandemic, some debate, that if proper measures are taken it could be done sooner.
o Scale up graduation and livelihood programs which combine consumption support, access to basic financial
services, and related business training and life coaching with the objective of moving (“graduating”) families from
extreme poverty into a more secure position.
oFinancial inclusion: Scaling-up successful existing access to finance lending operations through Nasser Social and
MSMEDA in the form of i) additional lines of credit supporting entrepreneurs; ii) ease credit and lending terms to
finance working capital of micro and small entrepreneurs especially in highly affected sectors; iii) Strengthen and
formalize partnerships between the Egypt Post and the Microfinance Sector; and iv) Promote and financial literacy
and consumer protection measures.
oScale up child care support given that working women could be offered to offset some household expenditures and
redistribute the burden of unpaid care work undertaken mostly by women.
oScale up healthcare for the poorer, social housing, water and rural sanitation, local government service delivery
public transport subsidies, and private sector led growth can serve as part of a medium term mitigation package.

10. Proposed Social Response Measures
C) Preparedness:
Social protection systems which are not risk-informed and do not have contingency operating
procedures may face serious difficulties the government has established a inter-ministerial committee
headed by the PM to discuss economic implications of COVID-19, set policies and programs in place
and coordinate response between state and non-state actors.
o Build on the Unified National Registry (UNR) connecting up to date 77 offline and 22 online existing
databases through the unique ID to improve targeting and promote integration. The database is being
used to clean & better target food subsidies, in rolling out health insurance plan and profiling of
Egyptian households in addition to other interventions. This UNR could make an important contribution
to preparedness and response to the crises to improve targeting of SSN programs.
o MOSS has developed a social registry hosting around 30 million poor and vulnerable individuals as
well as 10.4 million pensioners and survivors.
o Build on Social Registry and UNR to cross check data to identify informal workers registered through
the self-application portal of the Ministry of Labor and Manpower to start building a comprehensive
database of informal/seasonal workers.

11. Proposed Social Response Measures
o Strengthen the IT elements of the system giving greater reliance on remote
communications and interactions: The automated Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM)
developed by MOSS for the TKP could be relied upon as a means of remote
communication/interaction.
o Gender-based violence (GBV) rates and inter-partner violence is increasing in light of
COVID-19 quarantining, MoSS GRM system could be used to report on GBV cases among
beneficiaries and the government could provide additional support to women’s and children
in this respect.
o A rapid response survey conducted by phone can be conducted to explore the impact of
COVID-19 outbreak impacts on different groups. Results could be disaggregated by sex,
location and age groups
oCash transfer payments are received monthly at post offices (4,270 offices across the 27
governorates). Further thinking around digital and contactless payment can be further
explored (i.e. mobile wallet etc..).
o Surveillance systems that carefully monitor and inflation and adjust payments accordingly.

12. Final Questions:
How do you ensure all the poor are covered given the limitation in fiscal space?
How can you build on data gathered on irregular workers and think of expanding schemes to
cover casual workers or irregular workers?
How can you strengthen GRM systems to ensure GBV is tracked (given that we know this under-
reported)
How can you continue to track impact of cash transfers on the poor and vulnerable?

13. Thank You!