Malawi Social Cash Transfer Programme Receives 18 Vehicles From EU, KfW

Cross section of EU, KfW vehicles 

Cutting the tape

The European Union (EU) and the German government-owned development bank KfW has donated 18 vehicles to Malawi Government to ease transport problems in the Social Cash Transfer programme 

Kaliati

Speaking at handover ceremony on Wednesday, in Lilongwe, Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare said the donation has come at a right time as the ministry was finding challenges in reaching out to remote rural areas.

“We have been having problems in reaching into our 18 districts which are our targeted areas and to travel from one place to another we used to borrow vehicles from other ministries and district councils” said Kaliati

“On behalf of Government and through you Ambassador Marchel Gerrmann, I would like to thank European Union and German Government through KfW for the support of the programme and buying of these 18 vehicles to assist us in implementation of this programme and make sure that our people are reached in this program.”

The Gender Minister then indicated that the continue financial support from European Union and KfW of German towards the programme is bearing fruit as lives of many beneficiaries are being transformed in many ways.

Kaliati said at the moment the programme is now reaching to over 50 percent of the targeted vulnerable utra-poor families and that most of the beneficiaries are beginning to graduate from the initiative.

Through Cash Transfer Programme, she said, utra-poor families are being empowered economicaly because they are now able to do small scale businesses, farming and owning livestock as well as do savings through village banking. She added that through these economic activities such targeted families are now building and living in better houses, becoming food secure, able to provide their children with basic needs and sending them to school a development which has led to an improvement in school enrollment with 40 percent in all pilot districts.

“If we are to bail out our people from extreme poverty, these are programmes that we need to support because they target utra-poor families both men and women.” said Kaliati

Kaliati receiving car keys from
Ambassador Marchel Gerrmann

However, she noted that there are 10 remaining districts that which Government wants to be reached with the programme and she asked EU and KfW and all institutions to help Government to roll out programme in those remaining districts.

“We want to rollout also in districts like Dowa and Chiradzulu where we are experiencing a lot of gender based violence, defilement cases, problems of wills and inheritance. And if we are going to roll out Cash Transfer into these districts we are going to reduce all gender based violence because men and women are going to be busy and also they are going to benefit from programmes that comes along with Social Cash Transfer including adult literacy and nutrition programmes. And this is gong to propel our goal of achieving Sustainable Goals by 2030”

Kaliati also assured EU and KfW that effective measure are already in place to ensure that the donated vehicles are being taken care to achieve results.

On his part, Head of EU Delegation to Malawi Ambassador Marchel Gerrmann said EU is happy to support the programme because it is changing people’s lives and also hinted that the 18 vehicles have been bought at Six Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euro (€ 650, 000) which is just 2% of the total support to the programme.

“The Cash Transfer Programme is a very important programme, it is helping the poorest of the poor of Malawi and am very proud actually that together with development partners we are supporting 700 thousand people who get these Cash Transfers. Out of this, 40% are being supported by European Union and we are working in 8 district and most of them are very large and hard to reach. So the vehicles are important to deliver in the programme.” he said

"I am very proud with the programme because it helps poorest of the poor to send children to school, buying some livestock helping them when they need health services, it helps to save a little bit, so very concrete ways of improving their lives and am very pround as EU that we are supporting this and also we are thankful to the Government and KfW of German organization and other partners implementing this programme.”

Responding to Government request to help in rollout in remaining districts he said "As EU we are currently active in 8 district and we still have two years of this programme to deliver so I think that is what we will do. 

I think we have to be careful that we cannot be active in all districts and I think it is also important that part of this programme is delivered by the Government because if not then actually Government will become completely depending on donors for this and that is not good at the time when we are also thinking on how can Malawi make the next move towards trade and investment agenda and lower its dependency, but nevertheless for the coming two years, we are fully committed  and to support this important programme.”

The Cash Transfer Programme was created to help contribute to national efforts to reduce poverty and hunger among ultra-poor and labor constrained households, increase school enrolment and attendance of children, improve health, nutrition, protection and well-being of vulnerable children. 

The Social Cash Transfer programme was launched as a pilot study in Mchinji district in 2006 and currently is in an additional 16 districts. However government plans to extend the programme to all parts of the country. The programme is funded through help from organisations such as European Union, German Government, Irish Aid, World Bank, UNICEF and the government of Malawi.

Programme support it self by EU is 35 million Euro and the 18 cars are valued at 650, 000 thousand Euro which is about 2% of their contribution.