Lebanon’s compounding crises have had severe implications on the country’s human capital. Poverty and vulnerability have increased significantly, with projections from the World Bank suggesting that well over 50 percent of the population were under the national poverty line in 2020. Unemployment has also risen sharply during the crises. Based on a World Bank survey targeting formal firm, one in five workers lost their jobs since October 2019, while 61 percent of formal firms surveyed decreased the number of permanent workers by 43 percent on average. Rising unemployment rates during the pandemic have also reduced household income, affecting their resilience in the face of the crises.
To support households, cope with the crises, the Government of Lebanon launched the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN) cash transfer program with financing from the World Bank. The program expands safety net coverage to 150,000 extreme poor Lebanese households that are socially vulnerable. While this will substantially increase the coverage of safety nets in Lebanon, it will not reach the high numbers of households that have gone into poverty during the crisis. At the same time, and in light of severe fiscal constraints in Lebanon, further support is required for households to overcome poverty through the labor market.
In this context of poverty and fragility, the World Bank has selected the Rene Mouawad Foundation (RMF) to act as the Implementing Agency to pilot Productive Economic Inclusion in Lebanon (PEIL) project that provides livelihood support to a selected number of poor households targeting three Cazas. The objective of the pilot is to improve livelihood opportunities for 1,500 households that are current beneficiaries of the ESSN. Therefore, the PEIL Project complements the ESSN program by improving household welfare and resilience through productive economic inclusion. It strengthens sustainable pathways out of poverty by reducing household dependence on government assistance. To achieve the intended objectives of the pilot, the Project is composed of the following three components, based on well-evaluated programs around the world: (1) designing a data-driven economic inclusion program for Lebanon; (2) implementing the pilot program in selected regions; and (3) monitoring and evaluation to quantify the impact and cost-effectiveness of the pilot. Through these activities, the project aims to inform the scale up of an economic inclusion program across Lebanon.
Sperare by labora