2. Review of Literature
3.8 Challenges faced in implementing cash transfers
Hassan (2017) amplifies that the inclusion of conditionality on cash transfers also increases the risk of exclusion of the poor people. Conditionality imposes burdens by adding other responsibilities on people that have a lot of other problems to resolve. For instance, the case study of Mexico showed that mothers in the end became over burdened with household
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responsibilities to the extent that most children ended up dropping out of school as the conditions were elusive (Adato & Hoddinott, 2018; Molyneux et al., 2016). Additionally, UNICEF (2020) believes that the impact of conditional cash transfers on education remain mixed and limited as there has been no established effect on academic achievement amongst the recipients. Miller et al. (2017) concur that conditions only make people attend classes but it does not reinforce the urge to learn amongst the students. So one can conclude that though conditions might force people to meet a certain criterion this does not really improve their lifestyles. This is attributed to the fact that people only attend school to get the cash and are not really interested in attaining good results.
Furthermore, conditional cash transfers make the rural people look as if they are docile and irresponsible people with money (Bhala et al.,2016). For instance, Bastagli (2011) believes that the impacts of conditional cash transfers on education remain limited and mixed as there has been no significant effect on academic achievement amongst the recipients. Behrman in Bastagli (2011) concurs that conditions only make people attend classes but it does nothing in reinforcing the spirit of learning amongst the students. So one can conclude that although the conditions might force people to meet a certain criterion this does not really improve their lifestyles. As people only attend school to get the cash and are not really interested in attaining good grades. Therefore, a flexible cash transfer should aim at eradicating poverty and bringing autonomy to its beneficiaries (Handa et al., 2016). For a person to be empowered the intervention (cash transfer) should assist them to meet their basic needs such as food, clothes and shelter.
3.8.2 Cash transfers only targeting a small portion of the poor people
Furthermore, the small number of beneficiaries targeted also made cash transfers come under critique as a poverty alleviation tool. For instance, in Zambia the cash transfers targeted only 10 percent of the poor leaving many vulnerable people feeling left out and segregated (Miller et al., 2017). Many people felt there the number of cash transfers was too small for them to be called a “magic bullet” as most developers had acclaimed (Adato & Hoddinott, 2018). The other challenge of cash transfers is that they do not normally reach the “ultra-poor” of society due to the tedious registration processes and the location of national registration offices. Patel (2012) also augments that in South Africa the cash transfer policy is not helping much in targeting the ultra-poor. International Labour Organisation (ILO) (2017) is convinced that improvement is essential in the current social security system as it does not embrace all of the
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poor. The poor find it more difficult to comply with the conditions attached to receiving the funding, specifically in terms of documentation and commuting to towns to apply for the grants. Many possible beneficiaries did not even have the money for looking after the family, let alone money for travelling to meet basic conditions for the disbursement of the fund.
Therefore, targeting often leads to exclusion error of the poor and in the end those who do not need the benefit end up receiving it. As evident in targeted programmes in Latin America where cash transfers were successful they fail to reach a large proportion of the poor. For instance, in Brazil’s BolsaFamilia, 59 percent of the poor were not reached (Adato & Hoddinott, 2018).
Similarly, Mexico’s geographically targeted PROGRESA/Oportunidades programme did not reach 70 percent of the poor.
3.8.3 Power structures within households and the utilisation of Cash Transfers
More also, even when ultra-poor household had been appropriately recognised, structures of power within households can affect how money is spent within that household (Adato &
Hoddinott, 2018; Molyneux et al., 2016). As social constructions of gender behaviour can affect decisions about how the money is spent, in ways that are not always expected or desired (Lumbasi, 2018). The Ethiopian Social Cash Transfer Programme although it was mentioned as one of the best in implementation and targeting the ultra-poor, many field facilitators started citing how they ended up issuing the transfer to the husbands to avoid conflict in most households were the wife was a beneficiary (Lumbasi, 2018; MCCTPT, 2016). Making a number of authors concur on the importance of gender dynamics in household decision making;
their conclusion was that giving the cash transfer to women directly would not solve the problem as long as the gender dynamics of the community had not changed (Adato &
Hoddinott, 2018; Lumbasi, 2018; MCCTPT, 2016; Molyneux et al., 2016).
3.8.4 Efficiency of Cash transfers to reduce poverty
Furthermore, there was still a lack of empirical literature on the efficient management of the cash transfers (Catubig et al., 2015). It is easy to assess the programme’s achievement through evidence presented by others. Thus, lack of literature presents a gap in the evaluation of how cash transfers assist in reducing female-headed poverty without speculation. Even for cases such as South Africa were cash transfers are biased towards women with an aim of helping reduce poverty and empowering them economically, cash transfers are still under enquiry on whether they truly enhance women’s economic decision making power in their homes (Adato
& Hoddinott, 2018) further asserts that cash transfers brace traditional views where women are
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only seen as caregivers and as a result this lessens the economic load that women bear as providers. In the end women instead of being empowered by the cash transfer they encounter challenges of bridging their binary role of being poorly rewarded caregivers and productive economic agents (Molyneux et al., 2016)
3.8.5 Perceptions attached by beneficiaries of the Cash transfers
The other limitation of CT is the attitude and perception in which beneficiaries attach to the fund. Catubig et al. (2015) disputes that recipients perceived the fund as income rather than a supplement to their income, this made them less interested in looking for work and become fully dependant on the funding. Hassan (2017) further writes that cash transfers have markedly reduced adults’ initiative to look for work as beneficiaries have become dependent to the cash transfer and disregarded other sources of income. Just like any other aid given to the poor before, cash transfers also created the dependency syndrome (Catubig et al., 2015).
3.8.6 Cash transfers failing to achieve the desired outcomes
Furthermore, UNICEF (2020) points out that in most cases cash transfers are not successful by themselves. The successes normally attached to cash transfers, for instance impact of child growth, cannot solely be credited to cash transfers as the families were also receiving nutritional supplements from different programmes (Miroro, 2017). In Sakubva - Zimbabwe the cash transfers implemented by Catholic Relief Services were successful because most of the cash transfer beneficiaries were also receiving food vouchers from other donor agencies (Hassan, 2017). As a result, Hassan (2017) maintains that there has been weaker evidence that cash transfers have achieved the desired impacts or outcomes of increasing accumulation of human capital and breaking intergenerational poverty. As they have not been operational for a significant period, especially in developing countries, to allow for any informed assessment of impact and for anyone to measure the long term generational (UNICEF, 2020).
3.8.7 Politicisation of the Cash Transfers
In poor countries, cash transfers are normally funded from outside and are supposed to be disbursed by independent specialised organisations or non-governmental organisations, but there has been a call to conduct the discussion on poverty in a “non-political” or technocratic way (Adato & Hoddinott, 2018). The possibility of cash transfers being diverted for expenditure that do not meet the intended purpose is another issue that presented serious problems in developing nations (Adato & Hoddinott, 2018). Most aid habitually ends up being
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politicked and if the intended beneficiaries support the opposition party normally do not get anything.
3.8.8 Practices that can help strengthen the implementation of cash transfers
Giving cash to poor and vulnerable people’ is perhaps one of the simplest ideas to address poverty and thus explaining the rationale behind it may feel unnecessary. At the same time, it can be a controversial idea for some who think that the benefits will be wasted, misused or create dependency. One has to note that there are different types of cash transfer programmes namely conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme, unconditional cash transfer program (UCT) and Basic Agricultural Assistance which in other contexts is known as the control programme (AIR, 2013; Thome et al., 2014; Handa et al., 2016) and these cash transfers normally come with different strategies on how best to be implemented without abuse. With conditional cash transfer payments are made to households who comply with pre-defined conditions, such as sending children to school or health check-ups (AIR, 2014; MCCPT, 2016).
Unconditional cash transfer (CCT) programme although many might assume it’s a transfer without rules and regulations this transfer according to Barrientos (2010) is misleading as these are social grants financed by the state through revenues such as taxes and the transfers are given depending on one’s socio-economic status. For one to qualify they have to be of a certain age or should have a disability and are not be capable of looking after themselves financially.
Lastly, the control programme is when cash is exchanged for labour (Bastagli et al., 2016). For instance, in order to help strengthen the farming activities of female-headed households to reduce poverty, the Basic Agricultural Assistance Program expects female-heads to buy farming inputs that can help in their farming activities and failure to do so benefits will be terminated.
3.8.9 Targeting mechanism
The ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer should have a strictly defined method for targeting beneficiaries in Nganunu village. The method is designed to make female-headed households that are in need of assistance more transparent, to avoid political manipulation, and to prevent exploitation of benefits by non-poor households, (Kidd et al., 2017). Household targeting seeks to identify poor female-headed households within poorer territories in this case the Nganunu village, by collecting individual household data. The Basic Agricultural Assistance Program should encompass this practice so that they avoid selecting targets that do not need the cash transfers as they are better in terms of living standards than others. In the context of the study,
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the coverage of the ADRA-Zimbabwe’s cash transfer program is in rural locations with the greatest incidents of poverty. Therefore, the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfers should have a clear method in targeting beneficiaries who are female-heads to avoid inclusion of those who don’t need the assistance for the smooth running of the project in reducing poverty among female-headed households in Nganunu village. There should be proper modern databases where it can be easy to track names of active beneficiaries. Modern biometrics should be used to also avoid mishandling of beneficiary funds by project managers (MCCPT, 2016).
3.8.10 Termination of benefits as a criterion of reducing mismanagement of the fund
Most social programs that are being implemented frequently lack coherent criteria for determining when to terminate benefits, (Winters, 2012). Arroyo et al. (2008) have noted that there are two types of benefit termination which are; disqualification which include dropping out of households or being disqualified because of unwanted behaviour and graduation that is households whose socio-economic conditions have improved sufficiently over time.
Households that fail to collect their cash transfers for a certain period of time or whose initial inclusion was as a result of an error or misrepresentation household data should be disqualified.
Therefore, the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer project should have a clear criterion of whether to continue or terminate benefits of female-heads in Nganunu village as this is an important part of the program as inclusion, since premature termination threaten program goals. Needless continuation of wasting public resources that can be redirected to other beneficiaries in need, or in the long term to other projects responsive to new challenges. So this mean that, after implementing the cash transfers in Nganunu village, the ADRA-Zimbabwe should then terminate the benefits as soon as the female-heads beneficiaries have projects that can sustain them in the future and channel the cash transfers to other members of the village who need these benefits for example the unemployed youth, the elderly and those with disabilities or even to other villages around the country. Therefore, it is important for the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer program to practice this in order to run a successful project in reducing poverty among female-headed households in the Nganunu village, Zvishavane.