Poverty Alleviation: Safety Net Project Empowers Extreme Poor

 Hundreds of beneficiaries of the World Bank’s project aimed at reducing poverty and vulnerability in Cameroon began receiving their last cash transfers yesterday November 29.

Kebediang Ambassa, 67, a widowed mother of six in the Oyom-Abang locality in the Yaounde VII Council Area owns a local pub where she sells assorted drinks. She pays her children’s school fees with savings from a women’s network commonly known as ‘tontine’ or ‘Njangi.’ “Two years ago, I could not feed my family properly.

Paying for healthcare services was difficult and sending children to school was an uphill task. I depended on a small vegetable farm located many kilometres away from home” she says, noting she was able to save money and start her new pub thanks to the World Bank’s Safety Nets Project.

She still travels and spends two weeks in the farm while her eldest daughter takes care of business at the pub. Jacqueline Abougau, 29, also owns a small business in the Oyom Abang neigbourhood. She sells palm wine and testifies things have improved for her and two kids of hers ever since she started receiving bi-monthly donations of FCFA 20, 000 from the project.

Ambassa and Abougau were among 500 women who received FCFA 80, 000 each from the Safety Net Project in Yaounde on November 29, 2017. It was the 12th time they were receiving cash transfers.
Beneficiaries nationwide receive FCFA 20, 000 bi-monthly and FCFA 80, 000 at the end of the year. Many others who spoke to us while cueing up to collect their share of the money testified their lives have changed...