Bulawayo (New Ziana) – Social assistance coverage for vulnerable households, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, is low compared to assessed needs, an official has said.
The government, in partnership with various aid agencies, rolled out a number of assistance programmes for vulnerable households to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and last year’s drought.
These were mainly in the form of cash, and monthly food packages.
But surveys done indicate the programmes have not covered all people in need of assistance, meaning some are still facing difficulties to survive the challenges. One of the surveys was done by Zimstats with the support of the World Bank.
Speaking at the launch of the findings of the survey, World Bank country manager for Zimbabwe, Marjorie Mpundu said more people required social assistance than are presently covered.
During the peak of Covid-19, government’s social cash assistance programme covered about one million vulnerable households.
“More than two years after the pandemic, the coverage of social assistance programme remains low compared to the need,” Mpundu said.
“Despite many people losing their jobs, livelihoods and income, the coverage and adequacy of social assistance did not increase in response to the large systemic shock of the pandemic,” she added.
She noted, though, that one of the factors of social-economic vulnerability, unemployment, was tampering off across the country after the tight Covid-19 restriction regime was relaxed.
This, in turn, is bringing down social-economic vulnerability levels.
New Ziana
