Regina
Kondwerani is one of the beneficiaries of the scheme, which she says
has saved her family from starvation. The 16-year-old from Mchinji
district has been head of her household since her father died and her
mother abandoned her children. For the past four years, she has been
taking care of five siblings.
Before they started receiving the grant, life was tough for the
Kondwerani children. "Sleeping on an empty stomach was not unusual for
us. For four years, we had to do with one meal a day? or none at all,"
said Kondwerani.
The teenager wakes up early every morning to collect firewood, fetch
water, prepare food and make sure her brothers and sisters are bathed
before they go to school.
Before the family qualified for the grant, the siblings' education was
put on hold, because the need to find food had been a daily priority.
"We had to go scavenging for food that has been thrown-away in rubbish
pits instead of going to school?" Kondwerani said.
But since they became part of the social cash transfer scheme two years
ago, the welfare of her family has improved drastically. Kondwerani
receives $19 a month, which is an average monthly income in a rural
community in Malawi. "I am now able to provide for the whole family,
and we are able to afford food," she said. The grant also enabled her
to by goats, chickens and fertiliser to grow maize.
Poverty reduction
Like all beneficiaries of the cash transfer scheme, which was launched
in September 2006, Kondwerani's household was nominated by a local
Community Social Protection Committee (CSPC) made up of respected
community members, including the chiefs of the area. The CSPC lists
families in dire need and forwards those to the district Social
Protection Sub-Committee (SPSC), a body of social workers and
provincial government officials, which verifies and approves
nominations.
CSPCs put forward names of the ultra poor, child-headed households,
those unable to work due to disability, illness or old age. The money
is disbursed to beneficiaries without any conditions or the need to
fill out complicated application forms.
The amount of the monthly grant, which is coordinated through a
partnership of the Malawian government, the United Nations Children
Fund (UNICEF) and the National AIDS Commission (NAC), is dependent on
household size.
The smallest monthly grant is $4.20 for a one-person household. To
encourage school enrolment and retention, an extra $1.30 is disbursed
for children enrolled in primary school and another $2.60 for
households with children in secondary school.
"It is also an investment in children’s health and nutrition and
protection of children from exploitation and abuse, such as child
labour or early marriages," said UNICEF chief of social policy in
Malawi, Mayke Huijbregts.
"Cash transfers have made a positive impact on the well-being of the
poorest, and especially children, in the areas of health, nutrition,
school enrolment, retention and performance," she explained.
The scheme also helped to reduce child labour from 53 percent to 18
percent in Malawi, enhanced food security and diversity, investments in
livestock, housing, hygiene and clothes, Huijbregts further noted.
According to government statistics, 65 percent of Malawi’s 13.1 million
people live below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day.
More than four million children live in poverty, which is deep,
widespread and characterised by low income, low literacy, food
insecurity and high rates of child malnutrition, according to UNICEF.
Almost half of Malawi's children under the age of five are stunted due
to malnutrition.
To make matters worse, 13 percent of the country’s more than seven
million children under the age of 18 have lost their parents, mostly to
HIV and AIDS. As a result, more than half of children of primary school
going age have dropped out because of poverty, hunger and cultural
barriers.
Easy access to grants
Faced with such extreme poverty, the Malawian government had to ensure
that available grants reach the poor quickly and efficiently. According
to the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), a coalition of 100 civil
society organisations, the cash transfer programme is well targeted to
make a difference to the population's welfare.
"The scheme works better than the farm input subsidy programme, for
example, which is also being implemented by government, where the poor
get seed and fertiliser regardless of their ability to farm or not,"
said MEJN executive director Andrew Kumbatira.
Preliminary survey data on the social cash transfer scheme show that
the money is being used wisely by recipients and invested in meeting
people's immediate, basic needs. The grant is spent on soap, food,
education materials, healthcare, clothing, shelter, livestock, poultry,
seeds and fertiliser. Some families even manage to make small savings.
By the end of 2008, 12,000 households and 40,000 children have
benefited from the scheme. Government aims to increase the number of
households accessing the scheme to 250,000 by 2015, and the number of
children benefiting from it to 700,000.
(IPS)Â
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