Families living in extreme poverty nearly doubled with government assistance from Sao Tome

The government of Sao Tome announced this Friday that it will increase by almost 50% the number of families living in extreme poverty that will receive financial assistance through a World Bank-funded program to “reduce poverty and increase human capital.”

According to Nuria Seit, director of the Department for Social Protection, Solidarity and Family (DPSSF), the Family Programme, launched in November 2019, currently benefits approximately 2,500 households “in poverty and extreme poverty throughout the country.”

“The coverage of the new family program is 4,500 beneficiaries, of which 4,050 are women, which is or is expected to be a total of 18,000 children,” announced Nuria Seita.

The program is financed by the World Bank and has beneficiaries in six districts of Sao Tome and in the Autonomous Region of Principe, initially through the transfer of 1,200 escudos (49.9 euros) every two months.

The value was updated to 1,600 times (€65.3) every two months, reinforcing the program’s goal of “reducing extreme poverty in households, promoting access to and use of educational services” and “increasing the wealth of children in these households”.

“Expansion of the family program after the liquidation of emergency situations [da covid-19] this will serve as a measure to reduce poverty and increase human capital, prevent absenteeism and dropout from school. This process aims to expand the 2023 family program to 4,500 households and will end in 2027,” said Nuria Seita.

According to the person in charge of social protection, beneficiaries “must be in poor geographical areas selected by the program” and “be in economic conditions equal to or below the extreme poverty line”, and also “must have children from zero to 18 years old.”

Nuria Seita said that in addition to expanding the program, the organization is promoting a certification process with “beneficiary eligibility checks that include wealth updates” to “identify and filter beneficiaries who are not vulnerable.” , either because they have overcome their state of poverty, insecurity, or because they do not have minor children, or because of any situation of inaccuracy in information.

In April, the Sao Tome Social Security Council announced that 29,649 people from 7,581 households were living in extreme poverty and were included in the Unified Social Register to help identify support programs.