The development objective of the Social Assistance Project is to support the government of Lesotho in improving the efficiency and equity of selected social assistance programs. This paper seeks additional finance (AF) of twenty million US dollars. The main changes under the AF will be: 1) inclusion of a new retroactive Disbursement Linked Indicator (DLI) to support the Government?s ongoing crisis response efforts through the existing social assistance system; 2) modifying selected DLIs in the Social Assistance Project that are particularly urgent in the crisis response context; 3) directly financing emergency cash transfers for the last quarter of 2016 and first two quarters of 2017; 4) strengthening the technical assistance investment on aspects of social assistance that are key in emergency response and resilience; and 5) including a Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC).
