Social funds represent a diverseuniverse of World Bank projects. Social funds are defined asagencies or programs that channel grants to communities forsmall scale development projects. Social funds typicallyfinance some mixture of socio economic infrastructure (e.g.building or rehabilitating schools, health centers, watersupply systems,), productive investments (e.g. micro?financeand income generating projects), social services (e.g.supporting nutrition campaigns, literacy programs, youthtraining, support to the elderly and disabled), and capacitybuilding programs (e.g., training for community basedorganizations, nongovernmental organizations, and localgovernments). Social Fund programs are demand driven and aimto involve the active participation of several local actors,often using a community driven development approach. Themain goal is usually to address the needs of poor andvulnerable communities while building social capital andempowerment at the local level. Social funds have severalfeatures that place them in the social protection (SP)realm. They typically target poor communities and/orvulnerable households. They finance social risk managementinterventions like temporary employment generation andexpanded access to basic services by the poorest. Socialfunds are often employed to address immediate post?conflictneeds and responses to natural disasters.
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