Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN) Programme II (also known as Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) III)

2000

PSSN II: Transfers will be largely conditional on education or health and nutrition-related behaviors, while labor constrained households including the elderly, people with disabilities, child headed households will receive unconditional transfers. Pregnant women and/or children under 5 years of age must comply with prenatal and post-natal exams and/or regular child health check-ups. Children in primary, lower or upper secondary school age must be enrolled at school and have attendance rate of at least 80%

1.1 million households (as of 2016), equivalent to 10.5 per cent of the Tanzanian population in 70% of the country´s villages. A scale-up to expand the programme to 30 per cent of remaining villages was envisaged to start in 2019.

Total PSSN II financing: USD 633.80 million (included international development assistance resources)

PSSN II is implemented in 187 PAAs covering all Villages, Mitaa and Shehia in the country (n.d.) (PAA is a generic term for local government authorities/Zanzibar Administrative Authority or District, Town, Municipal and City Councils used by TASAF).

PSSN II: Poorest and most vulnerable households

PSSN II: The targeting mechanism of the program comprises three elements (i) a geographical targeting mechanism to identify and select project authority areas, wards and villages; (ii) community targeting to identify extremely poor and food insecure households in selected villages; and (iii) a proxy means test to verify and minimize inclusion errors. Households that meet the poverty criterion (i.e., score below the designated threshold) are enrolled in the programme. For public works: PSSN-eligible households with labor capacity and willing to participate. Households with labor capacity will be defined as those including at least one adult aged 18-65 years who is able to work. Households with multiple working age members will have the opportunity to send to public works any adult who is neither pregnant nor the lead caregiver of an infant (aged 0-2 years). Moreover, eligible households that have only one adult able to work who is pregnant or caring for an infant will continue to receive PW wages but will be granted a temporary waiver from the need to work.

Re-certification of existing beneficiary households will be carried out gradually over five years during PSSN II to ensure that they still meet program criteria, and those that are found to be no longer eligible will be exited.

Cash

PPSN II: Cash transfer - a beneficiary household would receive a minimum of TZS 12,000 (US$5.3) and a maximum of TZS 55,000 (US$24.1) per month depending on the Structure (number of children and school grade, and whether there are disabled household members) and compliance. Public works - at the start of PSSN II, the daily transfer rate will be 3,000 TZS (US$1.3) and it will be reviewed annually and adjusted using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the United Republic of Tanzania.

Bi-monthly (cash transfers); fortnightly (public works)

Under PSSN II there will be a gradual shift from the system of cash payments to electronic payments, based on a phased roll-out plan. The roll out plan will take account of the varying infrastructure and capacities in different project area authorities

Generally paid to a woman who is a mother or a caregiver.

PSSN II: public works - Eligible households will have an entitlement of 60 working days per year that can be spread over a period of six months

PSSN II will reinforce and fine tune the M&E systems developed under PSSN I, ensuring that a well-defined M&E plan is developed. This plan will set out processes, information requirements, tools and methodologies for data collection, analysis and reporting, and will clearly define roles and responsibilities, including in respect of the uptake of lessons and recommendations from annual and semi-annual reviews. The vision under PSSN II is to transform data collection, processing and information management into an integrated system across all levels of operations (national, regional, and project area authorities). In particular, the quality of reports generated at PAA level and the direct use of these reports at that level to improve program delivery will be enhanced. Moreover, a new impact evaluation will be conducted consisting of a baseline at the start of PSSN II and two follow up surveys, which will assess the impacts of selected elements of the program.

PSSN I has established appropriate institutional structures for program management at national, PAA, ward and community levels: the computerized management information system (MIS) is functional; a Unified Registry of Beneficiaries (URB) capturing a full profile of over one million beneficiary households is in place; whilst beneficiaries still largely receive their transfers in cash, mechanisms for making electronic payments have been piloted in 16 PAAs; there is a grievance redress mechanism (GRM) in place; and the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system has demonstrated its capacity to generate timely information on inputs, outputs and results. Under PSSN II, the MIS will be upgraded to respond to new business needs of the modified program and further work will be carried out to ensure reliable connectivity for all project area authorities.