Donor funding targets Liberian households

The European Union (EU), joined by its implementing partner the United Nation International Children Educational Fund (UNICEF), is supporting household families through a "Social Cash Transfer" scheme launched in the Liberian capital Monrovia on Thursday afternoon. The scheme is as a means of providing grants in the tune of 2.5 million euros from the EU to the Liberian government in support of alleviating poverty facing real poor and vulnerable families, but carried out by UNICEF. At the launch, EU Ambassador to Liberia Attilio Pacifici said the social cash transfer is a special project set aside to address the needs of most vulnerable and poor people here. He said although there are many ways to address the needs of social problems, his institution's project with the Liberian government, through UNICEF aims to help those persons in the making-up of household compositions get out of their poverty lines. "This one, cash program is perhaps the one that can address and go straight to those who really have little chance of getting out of a situation of poverty," said Pacifici. The project on a monthly basis brings support of 10 U.S. dollars to a person household, and 15 dollars to a two-person household, while a three-person household benefits from 20 dollars and a four-person household gets 25 dollars. A child in primary school gets the amount of 2 dollars, while 4 dollars goes to a child in secondary school, all filling gaps between the national per capita gross domestic product (211 dollars) and annual per capita spending of extremely poor individuals. Isabel Crowley, resident representative of the UNICEF, was bold in stating that over the last two years, many families in Liberia' s western county of Bomi had been receiving assistance from the social cash transfer program being supported by the EU and the Japanese government. As she give her story to the gathering of foreign missions and the media, Sonie Mulbah thanked the partners for their assistance. She said her life has been elevated to another stage, due to the project over the last two years, after being a very deplorable condition due to the death of her husband and father, during years of living in a displace camp. She said the funds to her household has done a great deal for them, as they have managed to carry on a construction, but called on the partners to held in ending her home project started. In grasping the idea, UNICEF's boss to Liberia said a lot have been achieved. There are About 7, 000 beneficiaries of the program in households in the post-conflict nation, with 63 percent being children and 17 percent the elderly.