Kawambwa Town Council has a local authority is tasked to bring development right at the door steps of its members of the general public. This department is responsible for in-depth interaction with the community through provision of services such as club registration, management of unplanned settlements and managing of bus stations and markets.
Sections under this department which have various functions aimed at providing full service delivery to the community include;
Community section
1. Community mobilization, sensitization and participation in development activities.
2. Sports and recreation.
3. Skills development.
4. Early childhood education and adult literacy.
5. Club registration.
Settlement section
1. Upgrade of unplanned Settlements.
2. Mapping of unplanned Settlement.
3. Numbering and registration of property in order to come up with a data base for unplanned Settlement.
4. Facilitate for occupancy license production and issuance.
5. Block management.
6. Help to resolve Land dispute in unplanned Settlement.
7. Facilitate for change of ownership in unplanned Settlement.
8. Facilitate for utility Connection.
9. Management of Markets and Bus Stations.
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
The mandate of the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS) as provided in the Government Notice No. 836 of 2016 is to implement Basic Social Protection Services that seek to provide social assistance and promotional services (livelihood and empowerment) to the poor and vulnerable of the society.
PROGRAMS
The Department implements the following specific programs
- Food Security Pack (FSP).
- Rain fed Cropping Component.
- Wetland Cropping Component.
- Alternative Livelihood Intervention.
- Livelihoods and Empowerment Support Schemes.
- Women’s Livelihood Group Support.
- Supporting Women’s Livelihood initiative.
- Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM).
- Community Self-help Initiatives.
- Non formal education and skills training.
THE FOOD SECURITY PACK (FSP)
The Food Security Pack (FSP) program was introduced in November 2000 by Government as a Social Safety Net to primarily empower poor and vulnerable but viable farmer households who had lost their productive assets due to recurrent unfavorable climatic conditions and adverse effects of structural adjustment reforms that reduced their productivity at household level in the 1990s.
The objective of the program is to empower the poor and vulnerable but viable farmer households with agricultural inputs and livelihood skills to improve their productivity with the ultimate goal of enhancing their food, nutrition and income security for self-sustainability and poverty reduction.
Specific Objectives of the FSP Programme
- To improve nutrition and food security at household level;
- To increase agricultural output and productivity;
- To promote conservation farming/ climate smart agriculture;
- To increase household incomes; and
- To promote community food banks and management, and marketing hubs.
KEY COMPONENTS OF THE FSP PROGRAMME
- The Rain-fed Cropping Sub-Programme which provides agricultural inputs to the vulnerable but viable households such as fertilizer, cereals, legume seeds and accompanying services is implemented during the rain season. This component is currently being implemented in all the 116 Districts supporting.
- The Wetlands Cropping component also provides agricultural inputs which include fertilizer, cereals, vegetable seeds and accompanying services. This component is implemented in winter (May – November) relying on the wetlands such as swamps, dambos, plains or any water basin accessible by the communities.
- The Alternative Livelihood Interventions (ALI) provides non cropping agricultural inputs such as sheep, goats, chickens and ducks to compliment the cropping programs. This component is implemented throughout the year.
BENEFICIARY SELECTION CRITERIA
During the enrolment of beneficiaries, the program targets poor and vulnerable but viable farmer households who meet all the primary and at least one (1) secondary selection criteria. The primary and secondary criteria are as shown below:
PRIMARY SELECTION CRITERIA
- Adequate own labor provided by the household;
- Access to land of size between ½ and 2 hectares;
- Household head or breadwinner not in gainful employment.
SECONDARY SELECTION CRITERIA
- Child headed (CHH);
- Female headed (FHH)
- Disabled Headed (DHH)
- Household keeping orphans or abandoned children (HKO)
- Households with more than 7 members (H>7)
- Household with a child or children under five years of age (HC<5)
- Terminally ill headed (TIHH)
- Household head aged 65 years and above (AHH)
- Unemployed youth (2015 National Youth Policy (UY).
Management of Recoveries and Pass-on Gifts
The food security pack is not intended as a free handout and therefore the program provides for 10% Pay Backs or recoveries after the beneficiary has been supported.
The pay back are either kept at community level or sold off and funds that are realized are used by the community members for other food enhancing.
These include the procurement and distribution of hammer mills, maize shellers, chickens and small ruminant animals such as sheep and goats among others.
SUPPORT WOMEN LIVELIHOOD (SWL)
The support for social assistance was furthered through the promotion of human capital initiatives using a “cash plus” approach primarily through the Girls’ Education and Women’s Empowerment and Livelihood (GEWEL) project by providing secondary school girls opportunities to complete their schooling and vulnerable women livelihood opportunities.
The Supporting Women Livelihoods is one of the components of the GEWEL project.
GEWEL has three main components: Supporting Women’s Livelihoods (SWL), Keeping Girls in School (KGS), and Institutional Strengthening and Systems Building (ISSB).
SWL is being implemented by the Department of Community Development (DCD) in the MCDSS at national, provincial, district and community levels.
The SWL aims at increasing access to livelihood support for women in extremely poor households in selected districts.
The SWL initiative provides extremely poor women aged between 19 to 64 years with opportunities to increase the productivity of their livelihoods, and their economic empowerment, through training, mentoring, peer support, productivity grants and help with setting up savings clubs.
The comprehensive package of benefits includes:
- Savings groups: Support and strengthen beneficiary led saving initiatives;
- Training: A 21 days training covering Life skills, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Business skills through practical, relatable examples catering to low literacy learners. The training is delivered by Community- Based Volunteers (CBVs);
- Productivity grant: Digital grant payments equivalent to $225, delivered through a government-to-person (G2P) payments model that allows beneficiaries to choose among different financial service providers. Lump sum grant of K2,700 is paid directly to each beneficiary.
- Follow-up support: Mentoring, peer support, and linkages to other programs, through weekly group meetings over the period of 6 months.
Target Groups
- The SWL targets women aged 19 to 64 years from existing SCT households.
GRIEVANCE REDRESS MECHANISM (GRM)
A GRM is a key pillar of any service delivery system – including social protection, education, health, etc. It allows citizens to provide feedback to implementers on service delivery and allows implementers to respond. Grievance Redress Mechanisms (GRM) help project management significantly enhance operational efficiency in a variety of ways, including generating public awareness about the project and its objectives; deterring fraud and corruption; mitigating risk; providing project staff with practical suggestions/feedback that allows them to be more accountable, transparent and responsive to beneficiaries, assessing the effectiveness of internal organizational processes and increasing stakeholder.