By Chancy Namadzunda, AfricaNews reporter in Lilongwe, Malawi

Grandmother Lucia Penyani is 68 year old and lives in Gomani Village
in the area of Traditional Authority Zulu in Mchinji district.

She looks after her three grandchildren, Chaona, Blessings and Misheck
Gamusi aged 12, 10 and 6 respectively, that were behind by her
daughter in 2008.

The children had earlier lost their father in 2006 and have lived with
their grandmother since their demise in 2008.

Situated on Malawi's western border with Zambia, the district, ranked
on number 13 on the poorest district in the country, has a population
of 456, 000 living on 3, 356 square kilometers and has a poverty ratio
of 59.6 percent, according to UNICEF.

Penyani's husband died in 1995, leaving her with eight children, three
of whom have since passed away.

"Although I am very old and have difficulties to find my daily bread,
I had no choice but to take the children as there was no one to look
after them.

"Life was very tough, I hardly had plans on how to feed them as I was
unable to work in the field and doing any piece work and the children
were very young. So when there was no food in the house, we always
kept our fingers crossed. Sleeping with empty stomach was almost the
order of the day," said Penyani.

Found in the same village is a child-headed household of 17 year old
Clementina Siliyako who has looked after her younger cousins, 13 year
old Richard William and his 11 year old younger brother Frank since
the death of their grandmother in 2008.

Because of poverty, Clementina dropped out of school in standard eight
before her grandmother died but Richard remained in school until last
year when he left while in standard six and Frank is in Standard six
at a nearby Zulu Primary School.

"I dropped out of school to be doing piece work in other people's
farms so that we can have food at the end of the day because our
grandmother was too old to provide our wants. After her death in 2008,
there was no interest from our relatives to look after us and I became
the head of the family. My cousins look at me for everything," she
said

UNICEF estimates that Malawi has 4, 000 child-headed households.

All was not gone for grandmother Lucia and Clementina as UNICEF came
to their rescue through the Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) in
2009 and 2008 respectively.

SCTP is currently being implemented in Mchinji, Likoma, Machinga,
Salima, Mangochi, Chitipa and Phalombe districts with Mchinji being
the only district which is being implemented at scale.

According to UNICEF, the programme is reaching 28, 000 families or
about 106 induviduals, 65, 000 of whom are children.

Penyani said since she started receiving cash from the SCTP, she has
been able to buy food, clothes, soap and medicine for the children.

She has also been able to keep the children in school at Zulu Primary
School, located about a kilometer away from her home.

"I also owns a 1.5 acre farm where I grow maize through the same
programme, life now is better than it was before," she said.

As for Clementina, she said they continued receiving the a cash grant
of K2, 000 (USD 13) through SCTP even after the death of her
grandmother in 2008.

"With the money, we have been able to buy food, soap, school books,
pails, pots and plastic sheets for our house's roof," she said adding
that they also survive on a 2 acre farm on which they grow maize and
groundnuts.

Said Clementina, "We can say that we are better of than before because
we are still forced to work for our food once the stock runs out."

According to UNICEF, the Mchinji Social Cash Transfer Pilot was
designed with the long-term goal of improving: "The socio-economic
indicators for the most vulnerable to ensure that the most vulnerable
with limited factors of production are sufficiently cushioned.

This encompasses the expectation for improved health and nutritional
status of under five children, school age children, orphans, pregnant
and lactating mothers as well as destitute families. To address the
challenges and constraints outlined, a goal has been designed to
decrease income inequality." have social welfare schemes that provide
cash to poor households, which are improving the financial standing of
vulnerable households.

It is argued that social welfare assistance is an investment in human
development that can reduce health problems and improve school
enrolment.

The governments of Mexico, Brazil and Nicaragua have implemented
social welfare schemes that have been found to improve income security
and access to basic services among poor families.

In Kenya, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the National AIDS Control
Council developed a cash transfer scheme providing households with
orphans US$0.50 per day.

Rapid analysis of a pilot programme in three districts revealed that
households spent this money on food, clothing, medical expenses, and
other minor household purchases. School attendance increased and
children obtained ARV treatment.1

Nevertheless, while there have been evaluations of conditional cash
transfer programs in Latin America, cash transfer schemes and the
evaluation of these schemes is still rare in Africa. Only Zambia and
Kenya have similar programs, yet neither country has conducted a
scientific evaluation of the program with baseline and follow-up data
of intervention and control households.

Therefore, it is unclear what size or value of the cash transfer has a
significant impact on families and what the range of the impacts are.

The Government of Malawi is particularly interested in robust and
unbiased information on the impact of the scheme as it works to
develop effective responses to poverty and the AIDS epidemic.

In addition, governments throughout sub-Saharan Africa are interested
in the results of the evaluation given the growing momentum around
social protection policies and the “Livingstone Call for Action”
(2006) where 13 Eastern and Southern African governments pledged to
draft costed national social transfer plans within two to three years.