Towards a capacity-based resilience building for social cash transfer beneficiaries in Malawi

1. Towards a capacity-based resilience building among
social cash transfer beneficiaries in Malawi
Pro-ACT Case Study
T. Arthur Chibwana & Pro-ACT team

2. CONTEXT
From program design, SCTP targeted beneficiaries are perceptively
those we can hardly build resilience to climate change and F&N
security on.
Are the poorest by community standards (community-based
targeting (CBT) criteria) and ultra-poor by other measures
including Proxy Means Test (PMT) that verifies whether potential
beneficiaries fulfil the ultra-poverty criteria.
Have no reliable source of income, they are female-led (widowed
or otherwise), they labour-constrained, they have a higher
dependency burden, host people with notable disability in the
home, are living with a chronically ill member and live with an
elderly member

3. CONTEXT
In practice labour-constrained households have been
operationalized as:
■ those whose breadwinners have died,
■ which have no able-bodied person of working age,
■ have old, very young, disabled or sick persons in the
household,
■ or have a dependency ratio bigger than three.

4. SCT PROGRAM TARGETING PROCESSES
According to the SCT Targeting manual, an eligible hh must have
met the following eligibility criteria to be identified:
a. Ultra- Poor:
■ The hh has on average only one meal per day and/or
■ The hh survives from begging and/or
■ The hh is undernourished and/or
■ The hh does not possess any valuable assets and/or
■ The hh does not receive any monetary help, food, or gifts
from others.

5. SCT PROGRAM BENEFICIARY TARGETING PROCESSES
b. Be “Labour-constrained” (based on the following characteristics:
– No member in the age bracket 19-64 years fit for work;
– Members in the age bracket 19-25 years attending school;
– A not fit for work – fit for work (dependency) ratio > 3.
𝑫𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐 =
(hh size)
19−64𝑓𝑖𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 − (19−25 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙)

6. SCT PROGRAM BENEFICIARY TARGETING PROCESSES
• Under UBR system, additional sets of criteria are used to expand the
poverty status and these include:
– The hh has on average only one meal per day; and/or
– The hh survives from begging and/or
– The hh is undernourished and/or
– The hh does not possess any valuable assets and/or
– The hh does not receive any monetary help, food, or gifts from
others.
– The hh survives on piecework
– The hh has no access to credit loans
– The hh has no shelter or the house is in poor condition.

7. CONTEXT
Under the National Social Support Programme, three main
categories of poor people are identified namely:
■ moderately poor with productive assets;
■ ultra-poor but with labour capacity;
■ and the ultra poor and incapacitated.
Under the SCT program, beneficiaries are classified according to
their level of poverty and this helps determine their social
protection needs and consequently the recommended social
protection interventions and programs.

8. CONTEXT: GENERAL NSSP CATEGORIES BY POVERTY STATUS

9. CONTEXT (cont’s)
The lower 10% considered ultra-poor are incapacitated and
required survival support and human capital development, this
category received school meals and SCT.
Generally, these are the lowest/poorest 10% based on the
current coverage
Since they have no capacity and are meant to only survive it
makes the task of helping them build resilience seemingly
daunting or may be hardly possible.

10. The Action: Pro-ACT MLUMIKIZI
Mlumikizi Pro-ACT Consortium set out to link communities under
Social Protection to Resilience in four districts, namely Mwanza,
Mzimba, Neno and Chikwawa.
Action will address existing food & nutrition security challenges
and contribute to breaking the cycle of food and nutrition insecurity
among the poorest hh under SCT.
Going beyond relief, MLUMIKIZI aims to address root causes of
vulnerability by layering interventions to suit the capacity and
capability of beneficiaries for meaningful and inclusive impact.

11. Building Resilience: The Understanding
• The concept of resilience entails that an individual, a hh or a
community:
– are better able to either prevent shocks, or withstand when faced
with a shock,
– can respond with positive coping strategies that do not
permanently diminish their productive capacity.

12. Building Resilience: The Understanding
• Better resilient households therefore are:
– able to anticipate risks (foresee and therefore can reduce the
potential impact apriori),
– are able to absorb shocks (accommodate the immediate impact of
the shock and stress have on their wellbeing/livelihoods,
– Able to adapt to evolving conditions (adjust behaviour or practice
and livelihood strategies),
– and are able to transform by influencing environment and rivers of
risks to create individual and systematic changes on behaviours.

13. Building Resilience: The Understanding
 Building resilience to F&N insecurity amidst CC among the ultra-poor
under SCT therefore requires providing the right dose of treatment
interventions for impact on all the anticipatory, absorptive and
adaptive capacity.
 While targeting for SCT programme requires that beneficiaries are
ultra-poor and have ltd access to resources, efforts to breaking the
cycle of poverty and hunger must build on the idiosyncratic and
covariate capacities available as a starting point.

14. BENEFICIARY PROFILING & CLASSIFICATION
• Consistent with the MNSSP 2, Christian Aid and partners in EU’s
Pro-ACT undertook to profile and categorize SCT beneficiaries based
on their potential or capacity to step out, step up, or remain in need
of continuous safety-nets in five districts.
• After the census, two primary groups (PG’s) were identified:
– PG-1 with those that are productive resource constrained (no land and/or
labour potential)
– PG-2 (with land and/or productive labour).
• In Alternative terminology at CAID:
• Stepping Out: Those that have productive resources and can be able
to move out of poverty with basic interventions and capacity
development.
• Stepping Up: Transitory Poor and Food Insecure Households with
some productive resources (land and labour)
• Hanging In: those that would continue requiring humanitarian
support and safety nets to survive .

15. BENEFICIARY PROFILING & CLASSIFICATION
• Main objective was to collect, verify and update
direct beneficiary data and categorize beneficiaries
to tailor and layer the available interventions.

16. BENEFICIARY PROFILING AND CLASSIFICATION
PG-
Category Eligibility Criteria for Primary Group
PG-1
Hanging
in
Have no land, Have no Labour
Have land, Have no labour at hh level
PG-2
Stepping
Up & out
Have land and Have labour
Have no land, but have labour at hh level
Those with land suitable for irrigation,
reclassified for winter farm-based interventions.
Group 3
Non-SCT beneficiaries that will participate in
community-wide interventions:
Target activities aimed at building community
resilience and addressing recurrent challenges
identified during PVCA.

18. SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

19. Summary of Parameters
Classification Parameter Mzimba North Mzimba South Mwanza Neno Chikwawa Pooled
Sex of Household Head
Female 61% 62% 73% 70% 64% 64%
Male 39% 38% 27% 30% 36% 36%
Marital Status
Single Parent (Single /Never Married/Widowed/Divorced) 66% 66% 76% 71% 67% 67%
Married/Permanently Cohabiting 34% 34% 24% 39% 33% 33%
Other Demographic parameters
With Chronically Ill 26% 27% 23% 30% 26% 26%
With a disabled household member 12% 14% 12% 12% 14% 13%
Dependency Burden (Has a member <19 or >64 years) 58% 54% 57% 49% 51% 53%
Living with Elderly 64% 55% 63% 55% 55% 58%
Productive Parameters
Household Has Labour 63% 62% 58% 70% 67% 64%
Household has some kind of access to land 98% 98% 98% 98% 91% 96%
Household can irrigate their land 21% 33% 18% 21% 28% 27%
Produced at least a crop in previous season 93% 91% 92% 94% 88% 91%
Involved in VSL already 23% 18% 20% 19% 21% 20%

20. TYPE OF DATA COLLECTED
• Household demographics
• Livelihood source and Economic Activities
– the 1˚ and 2˚ livelihood sources including small businesses,
farming, begging for alms, casual labour (ganyu), public works
(inputs for work and Food for work), and employment, among
others
• Land ownership and/or access
• Asset and Livestock Ownership
• GIS data for SCT beneficiaries

21. How are our beneficiaries classified?

22. Primary
Group
Mzimba
North
Mzimba
South Mwanza Neno Chikwawa
Program
Total
No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
PG-1 1765 36% 3056 37% 682 40% 477 30% 3169 33% 9149 36%
PG-2 3133 64% 5249 63% 1006 60% 1150 70% 6489 67% 16946 64%
Pooled 4898 8305 1688 1627 9658 26095

26. CAPACITY-BASED SETS OF INTERVENTIONS
• Based on the parameters above, beneficiaries
categories will receive interventions that suit their
capacities.
• Interventions lay within asset building, mindset
change (behavioural change), community system
strengthening and inclusion, and economic
participation

27. Primary
Group
Description Intervention
PG-1 A household is PG-1 if it has no
land and/or no labour to use for
productive resilience sustaining
activities
• Nutrition education and backyard gardens
• Village savings and Loans
• Priority for crisis modifier
• Less labour-demanding small scale livestock including poultry and rabbits
PG-2 A household is PG-2 if has land
and labour or has productive for
livestock
• Nutrition education/backyard garden
• Village savings and Loans
• Climate smart agriculture activities
• Small scale livestock like goats but on cost sharing
• Adult literacy /reflect cycles
• Energy saving stoves
• Cash transfer top ups during lean periods for 15% for PG-2 beneficiaries (aimed at
motivating focus on production in own farms (not to sell off labour during farm labour peak
periods) as opposed to just consumption smoothing)
• Agriculture production Input support
• Energy saving stoves
• Collective Markets and value chains
Group 3 Community members will
participate in environmental
sustainability, nutrition education,
marketing and value chain
development, and social and
behavioural change interventions
• Nutrition education/ back yard gardens
• Village savings and Loans
• Catchment conservation
• Climate smart agriculture activities
• Adult literacy /reflect cycles
• Energy saving stoves
• Collective Markets and value chains
• DRR activities
Intervention Sets

28. AREAS FOR LEARNING AND RESEARCH
• The Action will undertake to conduct an assessment of
the impact of the capacity-based intervention
packages as well as the effectiveness of the approach
(to deliver ) on household poverty reduction and
resilience to food and nutrition shocks.
– Who steps up and out of poverty after the interventions,
what are the main contributors to that?
– What kind of interventions work or not work?
– Can we move people out of ultra-poverty? We will see
– Potentially, a small group of beneficiaries in PG-1 & PG-2
will be tracked over the course of the project and after the
project for an impact assessment of specific intervention
sets (SCT+ complementary services).

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