5. Research Methods and Methodologies
6.3 The experiences of FHHs in accessing Cash transfers in the Agricultural Assistance
6.3.3 Grassroots’ involvement of Village Committees in the selection of beneficiaries 93
Proper, fair and just selection of beneficiaries in any humanitarian program leads to improvements of livelihoods in rural communities. In Zvishavane all the key informants and ADRA-Zimbabwe participants interviewed agreed that, selection of participants in the ADRA Basic Agricultural Assistance Program was left to the Village Development Committees with
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the help of the community social workers. The village Development Committees was comprised of elders chosen by the community members to represent their grievances or concerns to the government. This committee was considered fair and just and the communities place great trust on them. The key informant explained that:
“Names of the recipients were compiled by the community leaders. The only group that had problems was the final group. You know when something is coming to an end everyone wants to benefit and the last group chosen is not as dire as the one that was given in the beginning. So it was now a matter of no I deserve it better than that lady who has a husband in jail to his careless behaviour. What people failed to understand was that no family deserved to be in a position of vulnerability. Furthermore, the few women chosen where a control group for us to see how women who had their husband’s land and resources would perform productively in their farming activities with a direct injection of cash. This control group also helps to create a safeguard of the program where people can see that when a woman is left in the headship position they can carry the weight and keep the family ship afloat while the husband is away making the community learn and emulate women as capable heads.” (Key informant interview No.1, February 2021).
Participants of the study agreed that the list of the selected participants was drafted in great honesty. One of the key informants mentioned that:
“The list was compiled in good faith and every person agrees. The Village Development Committees all presented the cases of the people who are in great poverty and so did the social workers from the clinic. These two groups were further given close to one month to thoroughly view each case and agree on who were to benefit from the ADRA- Zimbabwe scheme.” (Key informant interview No. 2, February 2021).
Focus Group Discussions participants also agreed to the fairness of the program particularly in selection of participants. One of the group participants said:
“The good thing about the selection process is that it is done through consensus.
Everyone that is the community, the social workers and ADRA-Zimbabwe officers as well as the community leaders has to agree on the eligibility of an identified beneficiary.” (Focus Group Discussion No.1, February 2021).
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In the FGD Interview No 2 the majority of the participants echoed that the program was fair.
One participant added that:
“There were some undeserving participants who also wanted the cash card but the members unanimously agreed to exclude them. Even those excluded from the list of beneficiaries were satisfied with the selection criteria which was done by the elders of the community with the help of the social worker and the village development committees.” (Focus Group Discussion No. 2, February 2021).
Therefore, from the above, one can note that the members of the community were satisfied with the selected beneficiaries of the project. Grassroot involvement of community representatives made the process just and fair as these committee members were fully aware of female-headed households that were in need of assistance. As a result, this led to the functioning of the cash transfer successfully. According to Catubig et al. (2015) and the feminisation of poverty theory by Chistensen (2019) the success and acceptance of a good social protection can be seen thorough great planning. For instance, the successes done by the Philippine government on how they would support the operations of the cash transfer ensured that the programme targeted credible beneficiaries. Making the Philippine’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) cash transfer programme to been seen as the best social development initiative to have been implemented in reducing the percentage of poverty in the world (Catubig et al., 2015). Arnold et al. (2011) asserts that such a positive view from the participants is a sign that the community development program initiated will yield positive results as there is uniformity of thought.
In contradiction with the above findings, selection of cash transfer beneficiaries in India was left in the hands of policy makers as the organisations had an impasse on the issue of who should receive the cash transfers and in the end they gave the parliament the responsibility of naming the targets (FAO, 2015). The parliament voted that everyone in India (citizens or non- citizens) deserved social protection, 75 percent rural poor, and 50 percent urban poor were supposed to benefit as long as they resided in the borders of India (FAO, 2015). With India’s huge population which encompass documented and undocumented people implementation had become a problem as most people were excluded particularly immigrants, homeless populations, forest dwellers and those residing in remote areas. The main reason for their
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exclusion was lack of documentation which officials needed even if the law did not require the documents, auditors needed them for accountability (FAO; 2015).
Empirical findings also revealed that the ADRA- Zimbabwe cash transfer approach was accompanied by what Nevill (2020) described as a more ‘transformative’ social protection intervention that brought about positive, lasting changes in the lives of the ultra-poor. This is in line with the social protection perspective that is of the viewpoint that results of a good program allows the beneficiaries to see it as fair (Barrientos, 2011). Hence, one can see the importance of the social protection perspective and its general insight of how all the participants will agree on the implementation design of the programme if it’s justly implemented. This is seen through the general consensus of how the program was beneficial for all participants in addressing the contextual specificity and multi-dimensional nature of poverty and vulnerability in their farming community. In other words, a key aspect of any transformative programme, would be the measures it took to tackle the causes of poverty. For some authors this also necessarily involved empowering the poor to tackle oppressive social relations and treating poor societies as people with rights, with a voice in programme design and implementation (Kabeer, 2015; Molyneux, 2016).
6.3.4 Easy Access to Foreign Currency to purchase Agricultural inputs
Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe often lack access to foreign currency to fund their agricultural activities on time (Glazebrook et. al., 2020; Jaka & Shava, 2018; Touray, 2016).
With ADRA-Zimbabwe funding these female-headed households there has been a ray of hope as that has meant female-heads could easily access agricultural inputs before planting season.
Gaidzanwa et al. (2012) and Kabeer (2015) also reiterated the importance of female farmers getting funding for their agricultural activities as women normally face poverty due to lack of financial resources to fund their activities. The ADRA-Zimbabwe team before implementing their programme conducted a formative study and they established that the programme had to form a partnership with financial institutions as Zimbabwe for easier access to scarce financial resources.
“The organisation during the foundation phase noticed that Zvishavane town was central to its rural area and Zvishavane had a variety of national agricultural input shops. Prior the organisation had faced challenges with logistics of moving tonnes of in-kind aid to rural areas where most of their projects were. So instead the cash transfer
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came about as a way to cut costs for the organisation and also help deliver a service to the beneficiary on time.” Key Informant 2, February 2021.
Another key informant added that:
“Despite the challenges to access money in Zimbabwe, ADRA-Zimbabwe works with independently accredited shops. These shops only give the beneficiaries agricultural products equivalent to the debited money. I think the system worked very well to bypass the local banks which impose too many restrictions on foreign currency withdrawals especially due to local currency cash shortages.” (Key Informant No. 3, February 2021).
Figure 8: ADRA cash transfer card
Source: A picture from the field work, (2021)
From the above findings, the researcher established that the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer was successful in bypassing financial institutions such as banks which are often affected by the central bank’s fiscal policies. One of the requirements is that any individual who receives foreign currency from a bank should have a foreign currency account. Despite this policy, access to foreign currency from banks has been restricted by the central bank, forcing many account holders to have access to the local Zimbabwean dollar which is a weak currency (Ndola, 2020). By making access to the cash transfer easy for beneficiaries, the ADRA- Zimbabwe program facilitated timeous availability of agricultural inputs. Commenting on the effectiveness of the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer facility, one key informant said:
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“I think the strategy that they used was helpful to avoid delays in access to the funds which in turn made access to agricultural inputs timeous. ADRA partnered with shops which sell agricultural inputs in Zvishavane, closer to the beneficiaries.” (Key Informant No. 2, February 2021).
Furthermore, findings also indicated that ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer was done in partnership with shops near the beneficiaries which helped in reducing travel costs while ensuring that the beneficiaries use the facility to purchase agricultural inputs or implements.