Cash means survival for Zambia's poorest
28 September 2007
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Zambia country profile |
Millennium Development Goal 1: Poverty and
Hunger
The effects of extreme poverty, such as widespread disease, mean that many
households in Zambia are without a breadwinner. In particular, large households
that have no family member to provide an income risk missing
out on essentials like food, medicine and education.
Now, a
programme supported by DFID is providing some of the country's poorest people
with the money they need to survive. The
 Social Cash Transfer (SCT) pilots are
making a real difference to quality of life, and should go some way towards
securing more families against poverty throughout Zambia.
Life-changing assistance for Maureen
 Maureen Jere and her daughter, Charity, live in Liona
village in Zambia’s Eastern Province. Charity has tuberculosis and Maureen, an
elderly widow, cannot walk properly due to the arthritis in her legs. Together
they are responsible for six young orphans who came into their care after the
children’s parents died.
"Because of my disability, and my daughter’s tuberculosis," says Maureen, "we
are unable to work and have no way of providing food for ourselves. We used to
rely on handouts from the other villagers in order to survive, but these were
unreliable and often insufficient."
Maureen and her family now receive 180,000 Kwacha (£24) every three months through
the SCT programme. This enables them to buy basic food, educational supplies for
the children, and medicine, including treatment for Charity’s tuberculosis.
Maureen even managed to save enough money for the construction of a small
mud-brick building as a place for herself and her family to sleep - a dramatic
improvement on the straw shelter they used previously.
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Helping the people who help the poor
Although the pilots have so far proved successful, there are still a number of difficulties
to overcome before the programme can be implemented on a national scale.
Joseph Mwale is a church elder and a member of the local CWAC (Community Welfare
Assistance Committee) in Liona. It is Joseph’s responsibility to identify which households
will receive cash transfers, and to provide advice on how best to spend them.
"I became a committee member because I saw it as my moral obligation to help the
less fortunate people in my village," says Joseph. "But, even though I find the work
very rewarding, it's extremely time-consuming, and I've noticed that other
committee members are beginning to lose incentive."
The committees are essential to the smooth running of the SCT
programme. While Joseph does not expect compensation for the time he spends
working for his local CWAC, he does not deny that payment would be welcome.
The scheme is currently looking at the role of the committees and investigating ways to
better assist them.
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Making more of an impact
 Robby Mwiinga is the Programme Manager for the SCT programme.
He is very pleased with the way things have progressed, but feels there is still
much to be done.
Specifically, he says, there needs to be better delivery of grants. This
includes improving the way grants are issued through banks, and opening up more pay-points in rural areas.
After all, for people like Maureen, travelling to the bank costs money as well
as time, cutting into the time she has to prepare food for her family.
However, Maureen is now able to send her daughter along to collect the money,
thanks to the medical treatment that has made Charity more mobile. It helps that Charity is
literate and can fill in the required forms - many other people are less
fortunate. Lack of literacy is yet another problem that needs to be overcome if
the whole process is to have more of an impact. Convincing the Government of the
importance of projects like SCT is another still.
As Robby points out:
"It's important to fine-tune the programme to remove the current problems we
are facing. We drastically need to improve the political will of the Government,
and the best way of doing this is to show that the transfers are really
making a difference to the lives of Zambia’s poorest. Without political will,
this programme will never be implemented on a national scale."
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Key facts
- Millennium Development Goal 1 is to eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger. Progress towards this goal has been limited in sub-Saharan
Africa and the target to halve the proportion of people who suffer from
hunger by 2015 is not expected to be met.
- In Zambia, 53% of people are extremely poor. Half of Zambia's children
are stunted – an indicator of long term malnutrition. Also, 16% of the
population are HIV positive, and more than a million children have lost
one or both parents to the disease.
- Zambia’s
National Development Plan has a chapter on Social
Protection which outlines policies and programmes to support the poorest
20% of the population, including Social Cash Transfers for incapacitated
households.
- The evidence provided through the SCT pilots and supporting work
will inform the Government of Zambia’s National Social Protection
Strategy. The vision is to implement a national programme protecting
Zambia’s poorest and supporting broader development.
- The SCT pilots, which are being developed and implemented with the
Zambian Government in five districts, will reach a total of 58,000
people in 2008. Pilots include age-based as well as community-based
targeting, and urban as well as rural areas.
- The Social Cash Transfer pilots, which will end in March 2009, are
one component of the £10 million
Programme Partnership Agreement (PPA)
between DFID and CARE. Around 25% of this money is going towards the
pilots. The purpose of the PPA is to enable the poor to better manage
key risks associated with food security, destitution and HIV and AIDS.
Other components include helping smallholder farmers to access seeds and
markets for their produce, and helping poor children to get a better
education.
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