FAOR and one of the attenders

Money transfer programmes have become an important tool of social protection and poverty reduction strategy in developing countries because they allow people to identify their most pressing needs and decide which goods and services they wish to buy from local markets.

In order to analyse the impact that cash transfers can have at the communities level, FAO in Mozambique, through the European Union Programme for the "Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals MDG1c, held from 24 to 27 July a training in cash transfers for various government actors and other United Nations agencies.

Participants were trained to design money transfer projects and also gained more knowledge about payment rules and monetary aid for vulnerable groups.

For the FAO administrative assistant, Sara Zandamela, the course allowed "to learn that one of the ways to create capacity in beneficiaries and allow freedom of choice and at the same time reduce or alleviate poverty is to adopt the model of cash transfer.
Zandamela also added that the course provided her with "concrete knowledge so that in the future she could recognize the different modalities of cash transfers; develop fund transfer projects taking into account different contexts and also be able to support the government in how to use cash transfers.

The FAO Administrative Assistant also noted that "it is not always possible to produce food everywhere for several reasons: natural disasters or man-made disasters. Thus, the cash transfer modality appears as a response to the programmes of resilience, relief and poverty reduction".

FAO's cash transfer interventions provide relief to farmers while helping to protect their livelihoods from future shocks (eg: drought, disease, poor production), overcome cash shortages and improve their food security and nutrition.
Attended to this training FAO partners from the World Food Programme (WFP) and local banking agencies.