WFP provides technical assistance to the National Aid Fund

WFP has been partnering with the National Aid Fund (NAF) , the largest social protection agency in Jordan, to provide technical assistance (TA), the first of its kind within the Social Protection portfolio of WFP Jordan. Over the last three years, the TA portfolio has expanded rapidly in parallel with NAF’s caseload expansion and as a response to the COVID-19 crisis.

As a result, WFP’s TA to NAF, in alignment with the national social protection strategy (NSPS) and with a financial investment of USD 7.6 million from 2019 to 2022, has contributed to establishing a more efficient, effective, and inclusive social assistance system that can enhance human capital development and respond to shocks and stressors flexibly and at scale. Today, NAF assists over 250,000 vulnerable Jordanian households with regular cash support and is considered an "excellence" among the various national social protection actors. Overall, WFP’s technical assistance and operational funding to NAF can be classified into five workstreams as follows:

Data collection for beneficiary validation:

WFP has been supporting NAF through large-scale data collection exercises via 450,000 home visits (physical and virtual) since 2019. The home visits represent a key step of the eligibility screening process for NAF as it allows them to concretely verify the accuracy of the information Jordanian applicants provided during the registration process and reduce the inclusion error rates before the targeting formula is applied.

Digital Payments and Systems Integration: Through this workstream, WFP TA fully supports the national objective of promoting financial inclusion, one of the main national targets of the Government of Jordan and the Central Bank. Therefore, in an effort to significantly enhance NAF’s digital payment mechanism and its accountability vis-à-vis the government and external donors, WFP invested in establishing a fully automated digital payment system that is integrated with various stakeholders, including major mobile money providers, JoPACC, and the Central Bank of Jordan. The design of the system was conducted jointly by WFP and the World Bank. In addition, WFP has supported NAF in transitioning its cash payments towards digital modalities by conducting info sessions for more than 60,000 families on bank accounts, mobile wallets, and financial inclusion.

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E):

NAF’s rapid caseload expansions required a solid M&E system, which has been limited to output monitoring without effective impact analysis or sufficient evidence generation. Based on joint assessments, WFP supported NAF in establishing the M&E and results framework, creating an M&E unit, and recruiting an M&E specialist.

Complaints and Feedback Mechanism (CFM):

The large caseload expansion and the integration of additional beneficiaries into NAF’s programs required an effective CFM system for improved accountability to beneficiaries. To this aim, WFP has supported NAF by establishing and resourcing a call center of 13 staff and by enabling a centralized system to receive and address queries and feedback through several channels. Through the CFM, NAF is currently able to answer 30,000 calls per month. Human Resources Support: NAF required large human power to enable a rapid and effective caseload increase; hence, WFP has been supporting NAF in terms of the provision of salary contributions for more than 108 NAF staff, including social workers, call center agents, and payment unit staff. NAF and WFP jointly convinced the government to formalize the contracts of social workers and payment unit staff who have been financed by WFP.