Beneficiary Lived Experiences of the Senior Citizens Grant (SCG) Programme in Kamuli District, Uganda

Cash transfers for older persons have been the major social policy in the fight against inequality and poverty among old people in many African nations including Uganda. Despite the overwhelming accomplishment in alleviating poverty as evidence in literature, cash trans-fers have been criticized for failing to incorporate transformative aspects in the relational and subjective wellbeing lives of beneficiaries from their lived experiences. In light of this criti-cism, this research paper investigates the lived experiences of beneficiaries of Uganda’s Sen-ior Citizen Grant (SCG) in terms of social relations and subjective wellbeing. The implica-tions of the SCG on social relations and subjective wellbeing has been scarcely studied by the various research studies that have investigated the impacts of the SCG. To fill in this research gap, this study explores the effect of SCG on subjective wellbeing and social rela-tions of the beneficiaries from the beneficiaries’ viewpoint. The research employed a quali-tative research design, executed through online interviews. The respondents of the interview included 20 SCG beneficiaries and 4 Key informants involved in the implementation of the grant. A research assistant was involved in making initial contact with the respondents, get-ting their informed consent, and also obtaining key informants’ phone contacts for inter-viewing later. The main question data gathered through the interviews was meant to answer was; What are the lived experiences of beneficiaries of the SCG programme in Uganda? The specific research questions that the study aimed to answer in order to fulfill this aim included: How have family and community relations been influenced by SCG?, How has the SCG influenced state–citizen relations? and What are the effects of the SCG on the subjective wellbeing of beneficiaries?. The findings of the study reveal that the SCG’s implementation has several positive effects on the social relations and subjective wellbeing of beneficiaries despite some failures in positively impacting the social relations and subjective wellbeing of beneficiaries. The negative implications included gender conflicts in households, tensions in relationships between beneficiaries and other community members, limited accountability mechanisms and unawareness of the right to social protection among beneficiaries.