By JOWIT SALUSEKI –
IVY Chewe, 30, is a single mother of four children who lives with her family in a village outside Chinsali district in Muchinga Province.
Since 2014, she has been enrolled in the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) programme supported by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
She is among many beneficiaries who have been rescued from the vicious cycle of poverty.
Through the programme female headed households receive K90 per month.
Although it may not appear as much, this money has made it possible for Ms Chewe to expand her farming activities, get nutritious food for the family and send all her children to school.
She has also managed to produce some surplus to sell on the market, reinvesting the profit into fertilizer and tools for more effective farming and on school requisites for her children.
‘’ Through the money that I get every month, am able to grow different products on a piece of land which I own.
This has enabled me to send my children to school’’, Ms Chewe says with a bubbling voice.
Fridah Chewe, 54 who lives in a village outside Mpika district is another beneficiary of the SCT whose livelihood has improved ever since she became a beneficiary.
The money she receives has made it possible for Ms Chewe to help her daughter enroll in a tailoring course at Mpika Skills Training School.
Ms Chewe is planning to support her daughter to start up a small business and secure her income.
Titus Musakanya also of Mpika district, for him been a person with a disability he receives k180 per month through the SCT supported by the Swedish embassy in Zambia.
Mr Musakanya notes that the financial incentive he receives has changed his life in many ways.
“I am now able to buy both chickens and groundnuts for my poultry business and the smallholder farm.
“This is an important contribution to my household, which consists of 10 persons.
Apart from being a direct help to my financial situation, the financial help has boosted myself esteem’’, Mr Musakanya says, with a smile on his face.
He explains that before he was enrolled on the cash transfer he often felt like a burden to the household.
Now he is an asset for his family.
The beneficiaries are part of a country wide Swedish funds programme aimed at empowering the most vulnerable, promote human development and reduce poverty at large in Zambia.
The programme contributes to the technical assistance provided through the United Nation joint programme on social protection.
Apart from empowering needy men and women, girls from the poorest and most vulnerable households under the social cash transfer programme also get their school fees paid.
Through the programme, the girls go to secondary school as part of the social cash + initiative “Keeping Girls in School” (KGS) supported by SIDA and the World Bank.
The Embassy of Sweden in Zambia says it is looking into the possibility of supporting this initiative as part of the social protection portfolio.
The project is piloted in 16 districts in the country.
Cash transfer programmes have become an important tool for social protection and poverty reduction strategies in low and middle-income countries.
An increasing number of African governments have launched such programmes in the past 10 years, especially to provide assistance to households caring for orphans and vulnerable children or to labour-constrained households.
Cash transfer programmes in African countries have tended to be unconditional regular and predictable transfers of money are given directly to beneficiary households without conditions or labour requirements.
Rather than conditional  recipients  requiring to meet certain conditions such as using basic services which is more common in Latin America, most of these programmes seek to reduce poverty and vulnerability by improving food consumption, school attendance, nutritional and health status.
Social cash programmes are on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa, building on the momentum generated by the African Union’s 2008 Social Policy Framework Plan of Action.
This plan motivated member countries to develop their own social policy frameworks and to give greater priority to social protection programmes.
With support from development partners, individual governments are taking up the call, formulating new social protection policies with strategies including cash transfers for the most vulnerable households.
Social cash transfer programmes commonly address hunger and food insecurity; school enrolment and attendance; the health, nutrition and wellbeing of children and household members and poverty reduction.
Typically, social cash transfer programmes are implemented by the government ministries responsible for social affairs, children, and gender or community development.
The programmes are typically implemented through decentralised ministry offices and programme committees at local levels.
The process to target beneficiaries usually involves a combination of national surveys and community-based processes.
Beneficiary households receive a regular cash allowance usually bi-monthly, the amount often depending on the number of household dependents or children enrolled in school.
Social cash projects provide various forms of support and monitoring.
Until recently, most evaluations of such programmes have focused primarily on poverty alleviation impacts, access to social services and human capital development.
Recent evidence shows that social cash transfer programmes can have impacts on household decision-making, including labour supply, accumulation of productive assets and productive activities.
Most beneficiaries of cash transfer programmes in Sub Saharan Africa live in rural areas and depend on subsistence agriculture. They live in places where markets for financial services such as credit and insurance, labour,
goods and inputs are lacking or do not function well.
Cash transfers often represent a significant share of household income and when provided in a regular and predictable fashion may help households in overcoming the obstacles that block their access to credit or cash.