Bong County – Signing one at a time at the Dolokelen Gboveh High School in Gbarnga, Bong County, over 2,000 Liberians received US$100 each from the Social Safety Net Cash Transfer program launched by the government and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Report by Edwin G. Genoway, Jr – [email protected]
UNDP and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) launched the Social Safety Net Cash Transfer (SCT) programme as part of efforts to support national EVD recovery strategies.
The Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in Liberia caused the death of over 4,000 Liberians and brought social and economic interruptions and hardship to a large segment of the people.
This project supported by UNDP as part of an Ebola Emergency response seeks to provide a safety net for households which have lost members to the disease.
Similar safety nets will be extended to extremely poor and labor-impaired households which have been most vulnerable to the shocks that EVD has caused.
Support will take the form of monthly cash distributions to qualifying households, which they will use to take care of their basic requirements for sustenance.
Bong is one of the counties affected by the EVD with the largest number of population in absolute poverty that is those below the poverty line. Cash transfers were given to 2,981 households in the amount of LD 4,500 (USD 50) for a period of 6 months.
Those who benefited from the cash transfer on Thursday in Bong got two months each to complete the six months. Each of the beneficiaries got LD$9,400 for two months which is US$100 equivalence.
Thursday beneficiaries in January this year also benefited from LD$17,000 which was at the time equivalent to US$200 for four months.
The cash transfer support is also aimed at strengthening the livelihood of those beneficiary households and help build their resilience against future shocks.
Speaking at the program, UNDP Country Director, Dr. Kamil Kamaluddeen, said the UNDP was glad to be supportive of a program that will help Ebola affected families and underprivileged people in the Liberian society.
He said he is glad to see the success of a program that is helping Liberians. “UNDP is glad to help Liberians stand on their own. We are helping those people because we want to accommodate them to fit in the Liberian economy,” he noted.
He disclosed that it was President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who appealed to the UNDP and submitted her government’s plan to the help the poor people of Liberia and those who are underprivileged.
He noted that the program was targeted for five counties but the UNDP sponsors it only for Bong and Lofa Counties respectively.
The disbursement on Thursday climaxed UNDP’s support for the program in Bong. The government of Liberia will only continue the program based on the support of other donor partners that will start wherever UNDP has stopped.
The duration of UNDP’s support was only for six months which has now expired.
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Julia Duncan Cassell, in remarks said the pilot phase of the project which initially focused on people living in extreme poverty was implemented in Bomi County with financial support from the European Union (EU) and technical support from the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF).
She noted that after a careful evaluation of the project in 2012, the Government of Liberia with funding from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) scaled up the program and included additional four counties; Maryland, Grand Kru, Grand Cape Mount and Bong Counties respectively.
The Gender Minister noted that building on the experience of the pilot, UNDP as part of an Ebola Emergency response supported the ministry with a cash transfer livelihood project which seeks to provide a safety net for those households which have had a member succumbed to the disease and upon which quarantine was imposed.
She thanked the UNDP and other partners for supporting the program. “We want to thank the UNDP Team for their continual support to this initiative including the World Bank for all the technical support building the capacity of the Ministry’s Team throughout the implementation stages of the program,” she noted.
She continued: “We also applaud the beneficiaries and citizens of Bong County for making use of the opportunity afforded them through this program to make a change in their lives and as a means of livelihood for the families.”
Beneficiaries of the program came from all part of Bong County. One of those who benefited from the program, Madam Yassah Mulbah of Jorquelleh District in Bong County lost her daughter in the Ebola crises. She explained that the money gotten in January was timely.
She noted that the money has enabled her to start her business and put her two grand children in school.
“My daughter Kebbeh died in the Ebola and at that time I never had anything to start with. But when I got the LD$17,000, I started selling Iron soap that I can fix myself and send to Monrovia for sale. When I got the money, I bought the first ten gallons of dirty oil and caustic soda and started fixing my soap and sending it to Monrovia by my other children them, now my business is sending my children to school,” she explained.
Another beneficiary of the cash transfer, Ma Bandu Kolubah of Gbarnga City, has completed her house her son started building before he could succumb to the Ebola virus.
“My house was almost finished, my son only zinced one side of the house before he could die. When he died and I got the money from the government, I bought two bundles of zinc and completed it, now I am living in my house. If I don’t even have food to eat, at least I have place to sleep, with this LD$9400 I have received today, I will start selling my coal small, small until my business grow like the other people around here,” she noted.