Republic of the Congo

The Republic of Congo introduced family allowances and sickness and maternity laws, work injury, and the old age, disability and survivors’ law as part of its social insurance system before independence attained in 1960. A social assistance programme, named Lisungi Safety Nets Project, was introduced in 2014 to improve participants’ access to health and education services. As a result, Lisungi Safety Net Project provides conditional cash transfers targeted at households with children and unconditional cash transfers targeted at elderly participants. The minimum and maximum cash transfers made to beneficiaries are US$36.22 and US$163 per quarter. The programme had 37,574 participants as of 2015. This programme used to be largely funded by international partners, but funding from domestic resources resumed in 2019.  The programme provides access to a social worker. As of 2015, social assistance expenditure per GDP in Congo was 0.05 percent, which translates to US$2.32 per poor person, assuming that the social assistance project targets the poor successfully. The Republic of Congo has a national coordination agency in place.