Cash grants help Lesotho’s poorest
Another community development initiative is nutrition groups, where among others, infants are weighed and measured to determine their nutritional status. If a baby is below weight, it is referred to and taken to a local clinic.
Lesotho is an agrarian society: 50% of the rural population relies on farming as their main livelihood source, of which 90% of subsistence farmers, and up to 80% of the population engage in some form of agricultural activity. Even in Maseru’s suburbs, small plots of neatly tended vegetable and fruit trees are ubiquitous. In this context the FAO, after conducting pilot projects, decided to help improve gardening techniques as a complement to the CGP.
A $26 gardening kit comprising six varieties of vegetable seeds, a shade net and training materials has been distributed to thousands of households so far, and these are used to build so-called “keyhole gardens”. The name keyhole garden is derived from its shape. It is a round, raised garden supported by stones that is filled with compost and soil and has an efficient irrigation system to help save water.
As with the caring for children, most farming activities are carried out by women. “My keyhole garden helps me to grow my veggie seedlings faster, and then I transfer them to other parts of my garden,” says sixtyfour-year old Matabello Fokotsane. The raised garden also conveniently allows her to weed without bending down. The garden is watered with grey water used for washing up; after tending to her crops, she washed her hands carefully from a bottle hanging from a tree, which prevents the transfer of bacteria living in the soil.
The CGP is not without its flaws. Matumisang Nkholi (20) of Haphalole village grows her own food, but said she struggles to feed her children due to her crop production being hampered by the present lack of water. Exclusion is one of the issues the programme is working on, said UNICEF Lesotho’s Mookho Thaane Ramasike, although families must exit the programme when children turn 18, so gaps are continually created for new beneficiaries.
Another problem is indexing the grant to increasing prices, but the biggest problem the CGP has at the moment is getting cash to beneficiaries in remote locations. “Cash delivery is very expensive,” said Ramasike, “and the mobile payment system experiences a big influx on payment days, so the system sometimes gets swamped.”
Nevertheless, the programme has been subject evaluations since 2011, which revealed that it has had a broad array of positive impacts. Due to programme messaging that the GCP funds should be used in the interests of children, there was a large increase in expenditures on schooling, school uniforms and school shoes.
There was also a 37% increase in birth registration, an anticipated effect of the programme, as there is a requirement for beneficiary children to have a birth certificate with six months of enrolment into the programme. There was also a slight reduction in illnesses such as colds or flu, possibly as a result of households buying more clothing and footwear for children, and an increase in school enrolments and children staying in school.
The CGP improved the ability of beneficiary households to access food throughout the year, though effects on food consumption and dietary diversity were mainly concentrated around pay dates.
Families receiving grants were more likely to provide support to other members of the community and less likely to receive support from other family members. Spending the grant money in the area where they live has a positive impact on the local economy, for instance on families who own local businesses.
The CGP is not a lot in terms of hard cash, but for those living on or below the breadline, in a land hit hard by drought and disease, any help is welcomed. Members of the Mokhoarane Community Council, whom we met to ask permission before visiting the villages, said the grant is “very helpful for our children” and asked that “they continue to receive the grants, so they can wear school uniforms and shoes, and have food”.