SOCIAL CASH TRANSFER

SOCIAL CASH TRANSFER FOR INVESTING IN PRODUCTIVITY LIVELIHOOD INCOME-GENERATING ACTIVITIES IN ZAMBIA

Iam Patrick Maboshe is a Mongu based professional Consultant, Researcher, Accountant, Community Social Worker, Child Rights Advocate, Citizen Journalist, Political Party Campaign Strategy Planner, Entrepreneur, Logistics & Transporter, Sales & Marketer.

As a Consultant, Researcher, Community Social Worker, Child Rights Advocate and Citizen Journalist from the interaction meetings I had with Mandanga and ilute Community Welfare Assistant Committee (#CWAC) under Department of Social Welfare of the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services.

I am looking for any organization that can support my idea, we join hands to research, understanding and study the context of human behavioral science design in cash transfer programs focused on poverty alleviation, inequality goals and the total cost of the programme. this might help our governments across the World mostly in poorest economies like Zambia who are benefiting from social cash transfer to redesign social cash transfer with long term independently innovations to beneficiaries of saving their cash and investing in productivity livelihood income-generating activities ventures rather than spending cash transfer funds on immediate needs and sending children to work instead of school,

OVERVIEW

• Social cash transfer programs aim to provide basic social protection to those sections of the population who, for reasons beyond their control, are not able to provide for themselves.
• People in need of basic social protection usually live in labour-constrained households i.e. households with no adult members fit for productive work. Due to their limited self- help capacity; these households cannot access any of the labour-based poverty reduction programs offered by governments or aid organizations.
• The bulk of households in need of basic social protection are headed by the elderly, widows, children, or individuals who are disabled or chronically sick. In Africa, the number of households consisting only of grandparents (mostly grandmothers) and orphans is still growing. This trend is largely due to the impact of HIV/AIDS. Unless these households are covered by social insurance schemes – which in developing countries are mostly limited to the small formal sector – they will be unable to provide their members with their most basic needs in terms of food, health care and education.
• The main types of social cash transfers aiming at basic social protection are non-contributory pensions, social assistance to families or households and conditional cash transfers (transfers attached to conditions like regular attendance of schools or health services).
• The Social Cash Transfer (SCT) Programme is a Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) programme which has been operating in Zambia since 2003 and is implemented by the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS) with the main objective of reducing extreme poverty and the inter-generational transfer of poverty among beneficiary households.

SOCIAL CASH TRANSFER (SCT) COVERAGE

· The SCT programme has been scaled up to all the 116 districts of Zambia

· The programme has reached 974,160 households country wide and aims to reach 1,027,000 households by the end of 2022

CHALLENGE

Please get me right and read until the end because our people seriously need our help. Almost half of Zambian's population lives below the international poverty line of $1.90 per day, often lacking access to basic needs and opportunities to improve their livelihoods. Not all beneficiaries of social cash transfer program are saving and invest the funds in productivity ventures.

• FIRST example I can give is of our Provinces like Western province in Zambia is endowed with fruits all year round and instead of them producing organic fruit juices they would rather make alcohol, get drunk of kachipembe (kachasu) a locally distilled beer made by rotting Mangoes and other wider fruits whose alcohol percentage is not known and become unproductive members of the society. People are very creative but their creativity is not earning them enough because this beer is only supplied to poor communities across Zambian provinces. Social cash transfer funds is breeding laziness amongst our people. So much money is paid out without it leaving a distinctive trace of its benefits. Across this brewery is vast fertile land ideal for Sugarcane, Maize, Rice, Cattle & fish farming. The farming activities cannot fully take place bcoz the area floods & these villagers have no know how on how to go about farming in such areas & have no capacity to dig fish ponds & do other agriculture activities around the ponds.
• SECOND example I can give is females and caregivers of children with disabilities beneficiaries are not saving and investing the funds in productivity livelihood ventures but spending cash transfer funds on immediate needs and sending children to work instead of school,
• THIRD example I can give is of my district in live, stay and work in Western province, Zambia, Mongu district alone is district according to a report presented at the last PDDC Meeting Mongu district has 14,793 beneficiaries and each are paid K600 (US$30) per month which adds up to K8, 875,800 (US$295,860) per month.
• FOURTH example I can give is social cash transfer impact met of reducing poverty, increasing food security, improving child wellbeing, improving living conditions and greater productivity and asset ownership.
• An additional K200 (US$6.67) will be paid out for 3 months will be K2, 958,600 (US$98,620) bringing the total to K11, 834,400 (US$394,480). Imagine this amount is only in Mongu district alone. This amount of money if properly utilized to create flagship projects in 3 different locations in Mongu district for 3 months would completely change the lives of our people in those areas and if the same is replicated in other areas the face of our communities and country would change in a matter of days.

APPROACH

• To worked closely with the highest selected social cash transfer beneficiaries in selected rural and urban districts of Western, Luapula, Muchinga, Northern, North-Western and Central provinces to conduct key informant interview schedule: For Department of Social Welfare program staff, Non-Government Stakeholders program staff to understand and identify the behavioral challenges recipients faced to save their cash and designed solutions to support them.
• To conduct in-depth focus groups for socio demographic questionnaire for caregivers, adults and young people with disabilities allowing us to understand recipients' goals for the program and why they faced challenges in saving their cash and investing in productivity livelihood income-generating activities ventures but spending cash transfer funds on immediate needs and sending children to work instead of school,

RESULTS

• We then designed behaviorally informed interventions and implemented them into the program's self-employment pathway. These designs included a self-affirmation activity, a guide to choosing the right business, a road map of steps to starting a business, an allocation planning activity, a partitioning pouch, and posters with example businesses.
• Individuals and households accessing SCTs have seen notable improvements in their lives, including reduced hunger and better school attendance for children. This will reduce poverty rates in Zambia; many recipients of social cash transfer program will reach longer-term financial goals, such as starting a new business or purchasing livestock or buy a good number of mechanized agriculture equipment that can assist to work the land and increase on production.

CONCLUSION

• At the end of the researcher if accessed financial resources, to be very honest i will seriously have to engage and urge the President Mr. Hakainde Hichilema and his Cabinet of Ministers to seriously engage the funders of social cash transfer such as the Irish Aid, Sweden, UK Aid, United Nations Zambia and World Bank Group to allow us to redesign the program and use their money to create flagship projects that will assist our people to become productive and self reliant.
• Giving out this money to each individual counts to nothing but pooling the resources together will create a great and long lasting impact. We have seen how these funds are withdrawn by the funders when they are not in good standing with a particular administration and have their doubts and questions over poor leadership. We don't want this to happen going forward in Zambia.

Issued by

Patrick Maboshe

Email: maboshepat@yahoo.co.uk

WhatsApp/Voice Call/Text lines +260765248889 and +260979997382