Blantyre District Council is gearing up to enroll at least 11,909 ultra-poor households into the Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) as part of its ongoing retargeting exercise.
This initiative aims to provide financial support to vulnerable households, helping reduce poverty.
Speaking during a full council meeting in Blantyre, Principal Social Welfare Officer in the Ministry of Gender, Given Mukisi indicated that the exercise follows the 2019 study on the impact of the Malawi SCTP on lifecycle vulnerabilities, which shows that the current targeting approach indirectly reaches many individuals with lifecycle vulnerabilities.
Mukisi highlighted that the Ministry of Gender, with support from the United Nations Children Fund decided to reconnoiter a new, innovative targeting approach to cover the lifecycle vulnerabilities.
She further indicated that Blantyre will have 11,909 beneficiaries, a slight increase from the current number of beneficiaries which is 7,869.
“During the retargeting exercise, the selection criteria for the households would include those headed by a child, those with at least one member with a chronic illness, a household with a member with a disability, those with one child aged two or below and those with at least one member aged 65 and above,” said Mukisi.
Meanwhile, the SCTP targets 10 percent of ultra-poor households which are sourced from the Unified Beneficiary Registry database.
