INTRODUCTION
The Tanzania Social Action Fund is implementing Productive Social Safety Net in which one of its Sub Components is Cash Transfer (CT) which comprises two benefits.
The first benefit is a Basic Cash Transfer per household being transferred to all eligible registered households; and the second is a Variable Conditional Cash Transfer for households with children to serve as an incentive for households to invest in the human capital of their children.
The Variable Conditional Cash Transfer for households with children is subject to participants’ compliance with a set of activities. These activities are of Health Conditionality Compliance and Education Conditionality Compliance.
Enrollment of Beneficiary Households
Enrollment of beneficiary households is conducted to register beneficiaries of PSSN with objectives of firstly to conduct community validation of lists of selected and of non-selected households; secondly is to conduct enrollment events of selected and approved households to become PSSN beneficiaries; and thirdly is to prepare and trigger activities to start PSSN first operations of compliance of health and education conditionality as well as payments.
Under this process, till the start of wave 2, a total of 266,601 (97.1%) as compared to the targeted 274,493 poor beneficiary households were enrolled by the end of this reporting period. However, the number of enrolled beneficiaries are changing as the enrollment process is on- going for Wave 3.
All actions and procedures related to beneficiary payment are adhered to on bi-monthly period. There is a Master Calendar which provides specific timelines and deadlines for payment process for beneficiaries.
Transfer Payments to Eligible Beneficiary Households.
Transfer payments amounting to Tzs. 13,195,087,385.23 to eligible beneficiary households have been made in order to achieve health, education and consumption benefits. Transfers have been effected to 147,362 eligible beneficiary households from 1,194 villages in 22 PAAs.
Transfer payments adhered to the current Government system using only six accounts at PAA level for Tanzania mainland. Due to the newness of the accounting system, there were challenges effecting payment on time as Officers at PAAs level were not conversant with the system and poor connectivity in some places. As time goes by, the situation has considerably improved since the PMO RALG is continuously working closely with TASAF to resolve any challenges as they crop up.
Compliance.
As per procedures, compliance with education and health conditionality begins with payment cycle and recorded for effectiveness in the third payment cycle For Pre-Wave beneficiary households, compliance with conditionality triggered the third payments while for Wave 1 beneficiary households, compliance with conditionality triggered the third transfer payment. A total of 133,059 beneficiaries are required to comply with education conditionality. Out of these, 31,446 (24%) beneficiaries complied with these conditionality. Also, a total of 52,948 beneficiaries are required to comply with health conditionality. Out of these, 6,201 (12%) beneficiaries complied with these conditionality. Not all data on compliance have been captured in the system due to the fact that decentralisation of MIS at PAA level has not been effected.
Grievance Redress Mechanism.
Cash transfer programme has a Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) to manage grievances regarding beneficiary claims, requests, data update and complaints on service delivery. The GRM has a module in MIS to manage data on that front. There are prepared, printed and distributed forms for use by CMC, VC members and beneficiaries which are distributed to the relevant levels for use.
Health, Nutrition and Sanitation Sessions.
Under PSSN, sessions are expected to be conducted in order to facilitate provision of appropriate messages on health, nutrition and sanitation so as to influence a change of behaviour. Yet these sessions are conducted under the responsibilities of sector ministries through meetings, workshops or regular check-ups for compliance with health co-responsibility. TASAF organized stakeholders’ meetings on mainstreaming nutrition in PSSN. The stakeholders shared their experiences in the implementation of nutrition programmes and delivery of nutrition messages at community levels. In the meetings, the support and financing of outreach services; monitoring reporting and follow up arrangements; nutrition and health community topics; and distribution channels of Micro-Nutrient Powders (MNP) were agreed upon and established.