USAID Monthly Report: GiveDirectly UCT COVID September 2021

The program provides digital unconditional cash transfers delivered through mobile money to micro-entrepreneurs, market traders, smallholder farmers, and the rural poor. The overarching goal is to protect the value of assets and avoid increases in debt by providing smaller, regular cash transfers that provide an alternative means of meeting basic needs. During the reporting period from August 15 to September 15, 2021, GiveDirectly continued payments to successfully verified recipients and completed field-based outreach to recipients whose payments had been delayed due to a mismatch between their name in GiveDirectly's systems and the name registered to the Mobile Money account. To date, GiveDirectly has sent 233,978 payments to 85,254 verified recipients, sending a total of 1.8 billion Liberian dollars directly to vulnerable Liberians. Follow-up data indicates that an estimated 34% of recipients paid to date are market traders or micro-entrepreneurs, 65% are smallholder farmers, 54.5% are women, and 19.8% are youth. The most common expenditure among recipients is buying things for an existing business (53.5% of recipients), followed by education for someone else (27.3%) and food (24.9%). 7.2% of surveyed recipients reported spending on agricultural inputs, 5.8% reported starting a new business, and 4.1% have added to their savings. GiveDirectly's internal audit team continued investigations into cases of fraud committed by mobile money agents. Between August 15 and September 15, 64 new cases of fraud were reported in Grand Bassa, Lofa, and Bong Counties for a total of 199 cases relating to agent fraud under this Activity. With support from the Mobile Network Operator (Lonestar MTN) and the Liberia National Police (LNP), cases are being investigated and resolved, and funds returned to recipients by agents. The program has shown positive results, with 96.0% of recipients reporting receipt of grant, 54.5% of recipients being women, and 19.8% of participants being youth. The speed of grant delivery has been 79.1%, with 99% of recipients able to withdraw transfers. Additionally, 96.3% of recipients understand key details of the Activity. However, challenges remain, including SIM swap challenges and the need for additional SIM safeguarding measures for recipients after SIM registration events.