By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
The National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) has today 10th July, 2024 commenced the enrolment of Economic Inclusion (EI) and Social Safety Net (SSN) payment to the Aged and persons with disabilities.
The project which will end on the 4th August, 2024 targets five selected districts- Falaba, Karene, Western Area Rural, Pujehun and Kenema based on the poverty map, and these districts will benefit from the EI and the SSN which is the Cash Transfer meant for the extreme poor.
The SSN cash transfer and provision of economic inclusion will support 15, 000 (fifteen thousand) extreme-poor households with regular cash transfers for three years. Among the extreme-poor households, the project will prioritize female beneficiaries as transfer recipients and ensure that at least 30%, representing 4,500 (four thousand, five hundred) households, have members who are persons with disabilities.
Additionally, the project is said to support 6,000 (six thousand) extreme-poor households who have previously received the SSN programme with the EI package.
According to NaCSA, the Aged will receive $45 and $200 dollars for the petty traders which will serve as a boost to traders that have not been in business.
In his statement, Commissioner for NaCSA, Ernest Mbaimba Ndomahina said that NaCSA under this economic inclusion would be embarking on the SSN Project which is a programme for cash transfers for vulnerable households and People with Disabilities (PWDs), the Aged, youth employment and skills development.
“Under this programme, we will be working with young guys with skills in demand on the job market,” he said.
He noted that the economic inclusion, the microfinance and small business support will help women and marginalized groups to help them grow their businesses and livelihoods. He added that under President Julius Maada Bio’s Five Pillars initiative, they have been working on infrastructure development improving on roads, schools and health centers, saying now that the rains have started, they will also be supporting disasters and risk management.
NaCSA’s Senior Director of Social Protection, Idris Turay stated that since the organization is community-oriented, the core to its operations is to provide support for the extremely poor. He said their flagship project that ended sometime back targeted the extremely poor by providing income support to help them access basic needs.
“It is no secret that based on the Sierra Leone poverty profile, about 56% of the population are poor and about 13% of that total are extremely poor. So it is those extreme poor people that we are trying our best to help them live above the poverty line,” he said.
He said that when the SSN ended, they had the Productive Social Safety Net and youth employment project, which to some extent has provided some economic inclusion. He further said that they have done the validation of those communities in the targeted districts through support from Statistics Sierra Leone that provided them with the enumeration areas on the communities that would benefit.
He said NaCSA will later do an impact evaluation to tell them the impact of their intervention on the extreme poor.
The objective of the SSN cash transfer and provision of Economic Inclusion is to provide quarterly cash transfers to extreme poor households across all 16 districts of Sierra Leone and serves as a continuation of the cash transfers provided under the Social Safety Net Project. It continues to give priority to extreme poor households with Persons with disabilities in the beneficiary selection process.
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