Impact of Social Cash Transfer on Multidimensional Poverty: A Case Study of Social Cash Transfer Program in Senjeh District, Bomi County in Western Liberia

The role of money in the fight against poverty has been relegated to that of enhancer. But on the contrary, social cash transfer, the provision of social income to the poor is being hailed as a magic bullet in the fight against poverty. This led me to the re-evaluation the role of money in poverty alleviation beyond income. This paper draws on a set of capabilities and functionings to explore the extent to which money impacts multidimensional poverty using the social cash transfer as a conduit. It compares social cash transfer beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries in Senjeh District, Liberia, using a nested quasi-experimental case study design and mixed methods data collection technique. The results show mixed outcome between the case and control groups on two sets of dimension-human development and infrastructure. The program reverses and widens the poverty gap between the beneficiaries and the nonbeneficiaries, and made the beneficiaries to leapfrog. This is due to mass poverty and the very narrow poverty gap between the two groups. Consequently, these results are unacceptable from a social policy perspective because social programs are meant to narrow poverty gaps and not to create, reverse or enhance them. However, the results on the other hand demonstrates that without money the poor are unable to convert access to improve infrastructures into desire capabilities and functionings as manifested by the control group. And that money has an immeasurable impact on multidimensional poverty as indicated by the leapfrogging of the beneficiaries above the non-beneficiaries of the program. This paper therefore concludes that if the little money provided by SCT can create such a gap in human development between the two groups, it means that SCT can be very effective if well designed, considering the context. It also demonstrates that the more access the poor have to money the better they will be. Therefore money has impact on multidimensional poverty and is fundamental in the fight against poverty, and securing well-being for the poor.