Beneficiaries of the Covid-19 emergency urban cash transfer also known as Covid19 Urban Cash Injection (CUCI) have started receiving payments as of February 2021.

National Local Government Finance Committee (NLGFC) Community Driven Development Specialist, Stanley Chuthi said CUCI emanates from the  restructuring of Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project (SSRLP) to allow the project respond to the COVID-19 emergency through targeted cash transfer response within the framework of the existing Social Cash Transfer Program (SCTP).

“SSRLP is guided by the Malawi National Social Support Programme II (MNSSP II) which includes Shock Sensitive Social Protection pillar which talks about the expendability and adaptability of SSPs in times of shocks and disasters. The intervention is a response to the Covid 19 pandemic which the President declared in March 2020 as a disaster,” said Chuthi.

The programme is being implemented in geographically targeted poverty hotspots based on the cities’ social-economic profiles and household vulnerability assessment. The cash transfers are supporting 199,640 beneficiary households through a monthly cash payment of MK35, 000 over a period of three months (January-March).

Out of the 199,640 beneficiaries, World Bank through the NLGFC under SSRLP will support 58,487 in Lilongwe and 53,513 in Blantyre totaling to 112,000 beneficiaries while European Union and KFW will support the other beneficiaries in the four cities.

When asked about how the beneficiaries will receive their payments, Chief Economist at the department of Economic Plannning and Development. Bessie Msusa said that the Urban Cash Transfer intervention would be delivered using mobile money system (MMS).

‘Due to Covid 19 and to avoid risks of one having huge sums of money when going to make payments, we thought it is wise to use electronic transfers. As such, TNM and Airtel Malawi were contracted to be disbursement agents. Funds are being sent to the two mobile operators and beneficiaries are receiving through either Airtel money or TNM Mpamba,” she said

However, only those eligible beneficiaries that successfully identified themselves in the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) exercise and had their data aligned with the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms register have started receiving the transfers.

CUCI is an intervention that seeks to cushion livelihoods of vulnerable and low-income households from the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19. The cash transfers targets those who primarily derive their livelihoods from the informal sector, especially those who depend on piecework, petty trading or those who may have been laid off from work.