EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In order to mitigate the economic and psychosocial impact of HIV and AIDS related illness and death of OVC and their caretakers, four Malawian registered Non-Governmental Organisations; NOVOC, CEYCA, YONECO and IPRSE in partnership with the Chitipa District Assembly have been coordinating their efforts, with support from STOP AIDS NOW! Netherlands in the implementation of a one year project aimed at strengthening the Social Cash Transfer programme through linking and learning.
The Institute for Policy Research and Social Empowerment (IPRSE) was therefore charged with the responsibility of leading the processes of conducting a baseline survey and implementing an action research to attain participatory problem identification in the scheme, participatory solution development and participatory impact assessment of key stakeholders in the process from both the state and non-state realms of the society.
The outcomes of the processes have been very encouraging with the partnership making inroads into what was initially seen as a no go zone for non governmental institutions. The Government has taken into consideration some significant policy positions while compromising on some. This subsequently offers fresh challenges for the partnership to ensure that progress that has been made thus far is sustained while strategizing to overcome challenges for future policy advocacy with particular reference to the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Programme.
While the Social Cash Transfer Scheme continues to bear observable advantages in terms of improving health of beneficiaries with fewer reported sicknesses among adults and children and increasing their demand for healthcare for children and adults and higher healthcare expenditures, it has also increased expenditure on children’s schooling and subsequently reducing in child labour in the country. The Social Cash Transfer Scheme has also enhanced accumulation of household and productive assets, basic necessities and livestock while increased agricultural production with greater food stores has subsequently resulted into improved food security including higher food expenditures, fewer missed meals, fewer days without adequate food, and greater food diversity. Thus Social cash transfers have not only subsidized consumption but have also enhanced productivity of beneficiary households and communities.
On the other hand, just like any other public initiative the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme stands to face challenges in its execution owed to a number of internal and external factors. To this end, this one year project has uncovered challenges ranging from inadequate human resources key to the implementation of the Scheme to limited and unpredictable income flow for the same. The targeting mechanism has also been uncovered as a to have some weaknesses in terms of permitting inclusion and exclusion errors while giving room for political manipulation at the community level. With a number of social protection instruments present in the district, the research also uncovered inadequate linking mechanisms for Social Cash Transfer beneficiaries.
But as action research entails learning through doing, through the process of quarterly Search Conferences, the research process identified solutions to some of the aforementioned bottlenecks some of which have successfully been executed. Suffice to indicate, this progress has been made possible with the improving working relationship between the civil society community party to the project and the Government at both the district and national level. It is hoped that such a rapport will continue particularly in the development and implementation of the Social Cash Transfer Programme in 2011 and beyond.
