1.2 million households eligible for social cash transfer, government says

Government says a total number of 1.2 million households are eligible to now receive emergency social cash transfers countrywide.

Minister of Community Development and Social Services, Doreen Mwamba said this was established by a rapid enumeration exercise conducted countrywide to determine the number of households affected by the drought.

Mwamba said this during the 2024 Social Protection Media Breakfast at Pamodzi Hotel in Lusaka, under the theme ” Sustainable Social Protection for Resilience Building”.

She stated that the exercise registered those eligible to receive support under the emergency social cash transfers in the affected areas.

“The emergency social cash transfers will reduce sufferings of the people and uplift their welfare in the drought period,” Mwamba said.

In addition, Mwamba said government had made significant efforts to scale up protection interventions such as the support in women’s livelihoods.

She stated that was currently supporting individual women with productive grants to improve their livelihoods

“This week is important as it brings together social protection stakeholders to debate issues that affect the sector in order to learn and share experiences, best practices and challenges as well,” the minister said.

She stressed the importance of making citizens resilient in the face of disasters so that they come out strong and stable in all aspects of their lives.

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Mwamba emphasized that social Protection aims at streamlining intervention and operations of the States and non-state actors in alleviating poverty and vulnerability among the people.

“The role of Social protection in tackling poverty and vulnerability cannot be emphasised.

Government in conjunction with its partners has been hosting the social protection week since 2016,” she said.

Mwamba noted that policies and registrations had been put in place to ensure that poverty reduction programmes were implemented efficiently.

She assured of government’s commitment to ensuring that the poor and vulnerable were provided with meaningful and constant interventions which are targeted at reaching the poorest.

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