Cash transfers a stop-gap measure

Social protection schemes like the Cash Transfer to Older Persons or the older Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programme go a long way to help the hardest hit among the poor. While poverty has an impact on the 46 per cent living on less than a dollar a day, it is the fraction of this group outside the workforce and traditional safety nets that suffers most.

The HIV and Aids pandemic, by decimating young people who would have cared for their ageing parents and children, creates the dilemma of retired older persons having to bring up their grandchildren on fixed and limited incomes. The challenges this presents usually means truancy from schools (even with free or subsidised education), inadequate diets, child labour and a vicious cycle of poverty. Thus, measures to lighten the load, keep children in schools and the elderly from destitution or dependency are most welcome. However, given the way the country’s population is growing, it is clear cash transfers can only be a short term measure as we put in place a more sustainable set of protections.