Emily Ndamera, a widowed mother of two from Mphukira Village in Nsanje District, could barely afford food and her barest basic needs last year.
Since 2020, her household has been receiving monthly social cash transfers conceived to cushion ultra-poor households. The Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) pioneered in 2006 in Mchinji District has since been expanded to all 28 districts nationwide.
Ndamera, 43, was living hand-to-mouth despite getting the social cash transfers.
“I was receiving K22 500 monthly, which wasn’t enough for our daily needs,” she recalls. “I often went to bed on an empty stomach so that my children could have something to eat, but life was tough.”
Nonetheless, with the social cash transfers, she could afford some of basic necessities.
Ndamera was worried when government devalued the local currency by 43 percent in November 2023.
The monthly income from the social protection programme could only buy less than half of the little she could afford previously.
Having quit schooling in Form Three over a decade ago, she knew the weakening of the kwacha signaled a rise in the cost of living.
Following the devaluation announced by Reserve Bank of Malawi Governor Wilson Banda, a dollar fetched K1 751 in local banks, up from K1 180.
Ndamera feared for her survival and defendants as the price of food and other commodities rising every day.
“I saw the cost of living spiraling beyond my reach,” she says. “I started doing piecework, which was fetching K2 000 to K4 000 on a good day, but these menial jobs were scarce.”
However, Ndamera was all smiles when she heard Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda on the radio outlining some measures to cushion the poor from the harsh effects of the devaluation.
The measures included increasing monthly social cash transfers to K150 000 as well as the number of beneficiaries by 15 percent.
“When I heard the minister’s speech in Parliament, I felt there was light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.
Other measures included adjustments of a K150 000 lump sum to safeguard vulnerable households battered by Cyclone Freddy, which affected more that 2.2 million in the Southern Region districts.
Government also re-introduced Urban Emergency Cash Transfer Programme to cushion 105 000 households in city councils of Zomba, Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu from the rising prices.
“Since I started receiving the new social cash transfers, I can afford a bag of maize worth K48 000. I also started making fritters for sale to grow my money,” she says.
Ndamera has also expanded her vegetable business, ready to start supplying her fresh produce to the neighbouring towns in Nsanje, Chikwawa and Blantyre.
Besides, she joined a village savings and loans group where she is expecting to receive K400 000 when they share the profits.
The Government of Malawi and its partners provide social cash transfers for labour-constrained and ultra-poor households. They include homesteads headed by poor women, children raising fellow children, the elderly and persons with disability.
The monthly sums range from household to household depending on the number of children and poverty levels.
Nsanje district commissioner Dominic Mwandira says over K1.6 billion has been paid out to over 7 000 beneficiaries in the district.
“Since government increased the payouts, some households receive up to K300 000 a month,” he says.
The government implements the social protection initiative through the Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare.
Its spokesperson Pauline Kaude says the hike in payouts has given recipients a boost to overcome poverty.
“Most recipients now invest their monthly social cash transfers in profitable businesses as well as village banks and cooperatives, where they save and borrow for their well-being” she says.
Every cash-out puts a smile on Ndamera’s face as it signals better livelihood, a possible saving and an injection into her emerging business.
She says: “The increase in the social cash transfer payouts was a timely boost. My life is no longer the same.”
