02 December 2009
DFID supports cash transfers for orphans and vulnerable children, a Social Protection strategy, and a Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP) in fragile pastoralist arid areas (450,000 people).
The HSNP aims to fight against chronic hunger and poverty in Northern Kenya. Over 70% of the population in the targeted areas lives below the poverty line with 60% surviving on emergency food aid for over a decade. The programme is highly innovative. It is testing for the most cost effective and politically acceptable system of targeting households. Other innovative approaches include registration of households using biometrics, and an effective rural outreach payment system using biometric identification, point of sales devices and of mobile phone technology.
Partnering with Equity Bank, the programme is expanding the frontier of banking and other financial services to the poorest areas of Kenya. Using local shopkeepers and their cash reserves to pay recipients makes HSNP potentially the most cost-effective cash transfer programme in the World.
