The United Nations International Children’s’ Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has commended the Zambian government for scaling up the social cash transfer (SCT) scheme in an effort to reduce extreme poverty among selected beneficiaries in the country.
UNICEF chief executive officer, Mike Penrose made the observation after his seven man delegation paid a courtesy call on Kalomo District Commissioner, Cosmas Chiiba and later visited some SCT beneficiaries in Magrimond and Mawaya compounds in the district to assess the impact of the scheme.
Mr. Penrose observed that it was gratifying that beneficiaries are now able to send their children to school with the dependency on relatives and neighbours having drastically reduced while investment in small livestock has also increased resulting in improved household food security.
And Mr. Chiiba has thanked the international cooperating partners for supplementing government’s efforts to improve the livelihood and provide services to its citizens in various sectors.
The UNICEF team had delegates for Eastern and Southern Africa (EASR) management drawn from Spain, The United Kingdom, U.S.A, Finland, Kenya, and Zambia.
The SCT is a government programme funded by several international donor agencies where selected incapacitated and vulnerable households receive cash transfers of K140.00 bi-monthly.
The scheme was piloted in Kalomo in 2004 under the social welfare department and has since rolled out to 50 districts with a target to put about 242,000 beneficiaries in 78 districts of the country by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Kalomo district social welfare officer, Jean Hamonga bemoaned the irregular release of the funds to her office saying for this year alone, only two bi- monthly payments have been paid to the beneficiaries.
i have few poor family members and they have never heard about this scheme. UNICEF has only been to Muchinga and Eastern, so i can’t accept their appraisal of PF for the cash transfer
LIES THAT S WHAT THIS IS PURE LIES.
For UNICEF representatives to appreciate Zambia it means they have verified that the money reached the intended beneficiaries. It may be true that our relatives may be not part of beneficiaries because of the selecting criteria or the number allocated to the district is not enough to carter for poor people in your locality. If they are there I wish to advise my colleagues who are saying it a pure lie to lodge their complaints to the relevant authorities in their districts.