The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection or (MGCSP) announces here it has begun disbursement of social cash to extremely poor citizens in Maryland and Grand Kru counties, southeast Liberia.
“Today, I stand with much excitement to announce to the nation, our partners, and the world that the Ministry of Gender has started the full disbursement of social cash, to our extremely poor, and food insecure citizens in Maryland, and Grand Kru Counties”, says Gender Minister, Williamentta E. Tarr. Addressing a news conference held at the Ministry over the weekend, Minister Tarr said she is excited that the Government of Liberia embarks on such a great initiative to improve lives of her citizens.
She said individuals from over 3,000 households will receive raw cash to help them support their families, noting that the cash transfer is a major achievement under pillar one of the government’s Pro-Poor Agenda titled, power to the people, and subchapter, investing in social protection.
Minister Tarr explains the Pro- Poor Agenda for Prosperity and development (PAPD) speaks to the importance of direct cash transfer outside centralized national poverty reduction programs, saying, this milestone also captures the very essence of the sustainable Development Goals or SDGs specifically, pillar one and two.
The Gender boss notes the Liberia Social Safety Nets Project is a government- owned project that is intended to establish key building blocks of a basic national safety net delivery system and provide income support to households, who are both extremely poor and food insecure.
She indicates there are three components under the project, the first being strengthening national social safety net system to improve efficiency and capacity, while strengthening the social safety net system.
This will also finance the development of social registry to host an information system that would include household data as well as MIS functions, and transform such data according to basic business processes for diverging social assistance, Tarr explains.
She continues the second component is cash transfer to the extremely poor, and insecure households, currently ongoing in Maryland, and Grand Kru Counties.
According to her, the objective is to provide income support to about 10,000 extremely poor and food insecure households in Liberia through regular cash transfer, and accompanying measures.
“We are currently targeting 3,300 households which is just 15,000 people in both counties, and it aims to reach 7,000 households which we estimate will target over 30,000 people by the middle of next year.”
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Meanwhile, Minister Tarr points out that the third component is project management and capacity building to strengthen coordination among safety net programs at national and sub-national levels. By Lewis S. Teh–Editing by Jonathan Browne
