The Social Protection Specialist from World Bank
(WB) Headquarter in Washington USA, Eric Zapatero speaking to Nkwenda
village TASAF PSSN Programme beneficiaries during the recently field
trip.
TASAF works with Local government officials to identify poor and needy people in their local areas and these are eventually registered to get monthly disbursement of funds from the Project Financers. These funds however small they may be help beneficiaries to cater for their basic needs especially for buying some food items like sugar, clothing, school uniforms for the kids and others.
Chamwino District Council is one of the seven Local Government authorities of Dodoma region. It lies on the central plateau of Tanzania and has a total area of 8,056 km sq. The majority of inhabitants in the district are Gogo.
The District produces a variety crops. The crops grown include sorghum, maize, millet, cassava, cowpea, grape, sunflower, groundnuts, tomato, onion, sugar cane and simsim. The crops are grown for food and business (Cash crops).Other economic activities include fishing and cattle keeping such as cows, goats, pigs, sheep and local chicken, small scale trading and businesses
Christina Mtwale is the district’s Productive Social Safety Net Programme (PSSN) Coordinator. Giving the overview of the implementation of TASAF II to the delegation of World Bank representatives and TASAF senior officials who made a field trip to the three villages recently, Christina said the district Council implemented a total of 57 subprojects and Community-Based Conditional Cash Transfer (CB-CCT) Pilot in 22 villages whereby, 11 villages were of treatment category and 11 controlled ones.
According to her more than 2.8 bn/-has been disbursed to Chamwino District during implementation of TASAF II activities which involved food insecure, infrastructure, cash transfer, vulnerable groups and others
Mentioning the achievements of TASAF II Project implementation, Mtwale said, to-date a total 57 sub-projects has been implemented, thus all sub-projects were completed and handed over to communities and also delivery services were improved among communities due to increased numbers of social infrastructure like health, education class rooms, roads and water facilities.
She further mentions other successes that include enrolments of primary school pupils increased from 45 to 90 percent, increased number of elderly regularly attending health facilities for health check ups, medical treatments and consultations.
“Further, the clinic attendance of the children less than 5 years increased, noticed improved food security at household level since beneficiaries use part of cash benefits to purchase some food for their families…the household income also increased through engagement in economic activities such as poultry keeping, small vegetable and fruits gardening,’’ she said.
However, mentioning challenges which faced the project, Mtwale said high demand of fund to implement infrastructure sub project for example the intervention in the areas of CB – CCT pilot, shortage of required medical equipment to diagnose diseases like diabetes, typhoid together with lacking of entrepreneurship skills to most of beneficiaries.
“In overall, the implementation of TASAF II- supported interventions in Chamwino District Council has been successful,’’ she said
Speaking on the implementation of PSSN Program in TASAF III, Mtwale said it was launched in October 2012 with the main objective of enabling poor households to increase incomes and opportunities while improving consumption.
According to her, since its launch the project has done a number of activities which include Conditional Cash Transfer where two transfers has been done to 9,568 households as from January this year together with undergoing Community Saving and Investment promotion (COMSIP).
“COMSIP is an intervention which aims at promoting savings culture for PSSN beneficiaries so as to enable them save from what they benefit from the two components, that is Public Works Program (PWP) and CCT has been done,’’ she said
She added that COMSIP will also enable the beneficiaries prepare for future emergencies, smoothen out variations in income and consumption and to invest in opportunities potentially profitable and at the end of the day, uplift their living standards.
Nkwenda is among 77 villages which constitutes Chamwino District Council. It is located at Nhinhi ward, about 45 km from Dodoma town; consist of 8 subs-villages. Currently the village consists of 290 households of beneficiaries. The village has a primary school STD I-VII, Dispensary and good road from Dodoma town.
PSSN Program activities so far completed in this village include Conditional Cash Transfer where from January to April this year more than 16m/- has been transferred to the 290 beneficiary households, according to Mtwale.
“In terms of PWP, so far 12 sub projects were identified namely Mduguya Charcoal dam rehabilitation, 6km road rehabilitation from Muungano Nyerere to Mkapa, Mzeru Charcoal dam rehabilitation, 7km road rehabilitation between Mlowa and Nkwenda, trees nursery, trees planting at Institutions and individual premises,’’ she mentions.
She further mentions 8km road rehabilitation between Nkwenda and boarders at the Mpunguni village, 5 km road rehabilitation between Nkwenda and boarders of Nkulabi villages, 9Km road rehabilitation between Nkwenda to boarders of Mwitikila, Construction of Primary school football, rehabilitation of village football ground and Mgongo dam rehabilitation.
In terms of Community Saving and Investment Promotion (COMSIP), the village have been trained on LE/COMSP and managed to form seven groups namely Upendo, Umoja, Sokoine, Mshikamano, Neema ya Bwana, Mkombozi and Amani, according to Mtwale
Venance Magomba is a Ndogowe village Chairman. The village is located at Nghambaku ward, about 109 km from Dodoma town, consists of 4 subs-villages. Currently, the village consists of 276 households of beneficiaries.
“Our main economic activities here are agriculture of sorghum, maize, sunflowers, simsim groundnuts, Bambara nuts, vegetable growing and also livestock and bee keeping,’’ he mentions
Magomba admits that since January this year, more than 16m/- has been disbursed to 276 beneficiaries in his village while mentioning a number of subprojects conducted in his village.
“These include 12km road rehabilitation from our village to Nghambaku village, 16 km road rehabilitation from here to Mlazo sub-village, Trees nursery establishment and planting around social services institutions, our village primary school football ground rehabilitation and Usongu dam digging,’’ he adds
For her part, Celina Chedego one of the project’s beneficiary in Nghambaku village said since the project started she has managed to provide basic needs to her children together with providing them with school necessities like uniforms, exercise books, pens, shoes, food contribution and school fees.
“Through the funds, I have managed to construct a decent house by using iron sheets for roofing and I was able to shift from ‘tembe’ (local) house,’’ she says
Basing on their testimonies, most of the beneficiaries had ability to purchase food, clothes and paying for health services such as Community Health Fund (CHF) card, transport cost searching for health services through using cash benefit transferred by the Program.
Speaking to the beneficiaries, Eric Zapatero a Social Protection Specialist from World Bank (WB) Headquarter in Washington, USA said the firm is very proud of being the one funding the projects which in reality have enabled the targeted needy people to fight poverty.
“Our aim is to get positive results from the projects…since this seems to be attained in Tanzania, it paves the way for us to think on a way of extending more funds to the projects of this kind…the important thing for you to do is just to keep on creating new projects ideas..,’’ he challenged them.
During the trip, Alphonce Kialiga a TASAF Director of Coordination, advised the beneficiaries to use appropriately the given funds while insisting that his firm will not hesitate to remove from list any beneficiary who would fail adhering to the fund’s terms and conditions.
“Everyone must take a watch to his/her fellow beneficiary…if you see that he/she breaks the fund’s terms and conditions it is better for you to report him/her to us…there is a good number of other people who are in need of the funds,’’ he said
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SOURCE:
THE GUARDIAN
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