Project Summary

Project General Description

The COVID-19 Crisis Response Support Program (CRSP) to Uganda is designed as budget support within the framework of the Bank Group’s COVID-19 Crisis Response Facility. Uganda confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on 21 March 2020. This number had increased to 1,075 confirmed cases on July 22. The country’s overburdened health system does not have adequate resources to face this health emergency. Uganda is currently facing an additional challenge of a deadly invasion of desert locusts, which is posing a threat to food security and exacerbating the country’s vulnerability during this pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the Ugandan economy hard, both directly and indirectly, through global, regional and domestic transmission channels, with the hospitality, tourism, trading and manufacturing industries particularly badly affected. The Government has responded to the crisis with a broad financial package aimed at tackling the COVID-19 health emergency and supporting economic activity. It allocated resources to the health sector, expand social safety net programs, and provide targeted support to the impacted economic sectors. The program, which results from a request of the Government dated April 9th, 2020, was appraised on 15-30 April 2020, and will be applied for a period of one year (2020/2021). Bank support, estimated at UA 23 million, will provide financing to the budget for targeted spending, aimed at containing and mitigating the health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project Objectives

The goal of the proposed operation is to support Uganda’s National COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan to strengthen the COVID-19 outbreak response mechanisms and mitigate the social and economic impacts of the pandemic. The proposed operation seeks to achieve three short-term and medium-term outcomes: (i) enhanced capacity to test and treat COVID-19 patients to reduce risk of infection and morbidity; (ii) ease impact of the lockdown, and other COVID-19 related measures, on the poorest; and (iii) mitigate risk to medium-term macroeconomic stabilization and economic resilience.

Beneficiaries

The program will benefit the poor and vulnerable through rapid diagnosis, isolation and management of infected persons, strengthened livelihoods and expanded social protection coverage which includes vulnerable households and the urban poor. The program will also benefit households, private sector, financial sector actors through a faster and more inclusive economic recovery on the back of a more resilient businesses and workforce.

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