7. Conclusion and recommendation
7.4 The key findings of the research according to these research questions are summarised
7.4.1 The experiences of female-headed households in accessing Cash transfers in the Agricultural Assistance Program
The government of Zimbabwe at the moment is failing to meet the needs of its citizens due to misappropriation of foreign currency done by top government officials. The shortage of foreign currency has led to the collapse of most government service sectors especially the social welfare system that girls and women depend upon. This results of the research indicate that Cash Transfer programs were the alternative source of help for the women. However, the results indicated that the implementation of the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer was a success in bridging the gap left by the collapse of the social welfare system and it has been efficient.
The findings revealed that the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash transfer bypassed financial institutions such as banks which are often affected by the central bank’s fiscal policies. The access to foreign currency through the banks was difficult due to the restrictions by the central bank, and many people ended up collecting the weak local currency (Ndoma, 2020). By making access to the cash transfer easy for beneficiaries, the ADRA-Zimbabwe program facilitated timeous availability of agricultural inputs. ADRA made partnerships with nearby agricultural shops to facilitate the easy purchase of agricultural inputs thereby making sure the funds were used for the actual intended purpose. The selection of participants in the ADRA-Zimbabwe Basic
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Agricultural Assistance Program was done by the Village Development Committees with the help of the community social workers and the community members to make the selection process fair and just as they trusted the community social workers.
Cash transfers can be used as a poverty reduction tool when implemented properly (Adato &
Hoddinott, 2018). The research findings showed that the ADRA-Zimbabwe Basic Agricultural Assistance Programme was being implemented well and the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash card to some extent gave female-headed households’ sustainability in their agricultural activities.
However, external factors such as the economic, social and health crises hampered the full realisation of poverty reduction.
The results of the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash card programme can be seen by the following:
• Household income security
The results revealed that the ADRA-Zimbabwe cash card brought relief for the female-head participants in giving a household income security and bringing a change of behaviour in recipients. The cash transfer assisted female-headed households through bringing a stable and reliable income which helped in the reduction of relying on unsafe modes of survival such as prostitution and child labour. The cash transfer program empowered female-headed households by allowing girls to attend schools since families had surplus to meet nutritional, health and educational needs.
• Increasing agricultural productivity for female-headed households.
Empirical findings of the study showed that the ADRA-Zimbabwe’ cash transfer gave the female-heads in Nganunu village the capacity to purchase agricultural inputs which in turn empowered female-headed households to sustain their livelihoods. The cash transfers allowed them to save and invest. The female-heads in Nganunu village would purchase farming equipment such as ox-drawn carts in groups which they would rotate and do large-scale farming activities. The results revealed that this had reduced the poverty amongst the ADRA cash transfer programme recipients in Nganunu village.
• Increase in the nutritional value of families
Despite some external factors like climate variability, political, economic and the health crises, the findings show that to a greater extend that the ADRA-Zimbabwe shop card had a positive
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impact on the farming livelihoods of female-heads of Zvishavane. The results reviewed that the nutritional value of families in Zvishavane had improved because of the ADRA-Zimbabwe shop cards. Some of the households took part in group projects for large scale farming. This consequently increased their crop yields for both substance and marketing. With high crop yield returns they could purchase food with more nutritional value.
7.4.2 Challenges faced in the ADRA cash transfer program
Despite the positive experiences mentioned in the section above, The ADRA-Zimbabwe programme faced various problems in its implementation in reducing poverty in female-headed households in Nganunu Village, Zimbabwe.
The challenges faced included, the Cash Transfer targeting a small portion of the community. The Zvishavane community is characterised by high unemployment rates and many child-headed households (ZimVac, 2017, Rubhara et. al., 2020, Thome et.
al., 2014). However, as the ARDA-Zimbabwe programme only target a few participants such as the old, women and minor children, it only helps eradicating poverty among the few participants who are selected from the most vulnerable sections of the society.
Since the programme could not target everyone, the findings indicated an increase in theft as people stole from the recipients’ fields and vegetable gardens.
Conditionality of the cash transfer made it difficult especially during the COVID-19 period when some beneficiaries faced scarcity they could not use that cash transfer for other basic needs as they feared to have their benefits terminated.
Findings from the study also revealed that the cash access cards were easily damaged especially when in contact with hard surfaces such as being mixed with metal objects or even plastic bank cards. The cards would become unreadable on the electronic systems resulting in the card holders being turned away at the shops, causing delay in accessing the cash transfers, as the issue needed the ADRA-Zimbabwe officers for rectification.
The findings from the study also revealed that there was need for an inter-sectoral approach to reduce poverty in rural areas. A cash transfer alone was not able to remove the challenges being faced by the female-heads of Nganunu village
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The female-heads also needed training on how best to diversify their crop yields. They normally all planted the same vegetables making their clients limited. With different produce it also attracts new clients and new markets.
7.4.3 Practices that can be implemented by ADRA-Zimbabwe program to reduce poverty in female-headed households
The cash transfers should have a strictly defined method for targeting beneficiaries, 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, 2017).
To reduce poverty in Nganunu village successfully the ADRA-Zimbabwe should do a needs assessment to make sure that the beneficiaries’ needs are still being met. Also it is important to remove those that have shown signs that they can now run their farms without the help of the cash transfer so that they give the cash transfers to other members of the society even to other societies. This helps to avoid a dependency syndrome on these cash transfers among the members. In addition, this helps the cash transfer officers to measure success in the achieving the goal of reducing poverty amongst the female-headed families in Nganunu village through the Cash Transfer programme. Winters (2012), indicated that money transfer projects should have some clear criteria of whether to continue or terminate benefits as this is an important part of the program as inclusion, since premature termination threaten program goals. He also found out that needless continuation wastes public resources that can be redirected to other beneficiaries in need, or in the long term to other projects responsive to new challenges.