Ujana Salama - Cash Plus Model on Youth Well-Being and Safe Healthy Transition Midline Findings

Ujana Salama - Cash Plus Model on Youth Well-Being and Safe Healthy Transition Midline Findings

This brief presents the midline impacts of the Cash Plus program implemented in rural Tanzania by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF). The pilot, known as “Ujana Salama” meaning “Safe Youth” in Swahili, is operated within the Government of the Republic of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN), with technical assistance from UNICEF Tanzania and the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS). The Cash Plus programme targets adolescents in households receiving the PSSN (comprised of cash transfers, public works, and livelihoods enhancement) and is designed to fit within the PSSN’s Livelihoods Framework.

Adolescents in rural Tanzania face multiple health and economic risks, even those adolescents living in households already benefiting from the PSSN programme. Social protection is increasingly recognized as an important tool to invest in adolescents and ensure they become healthier, more
productive adults. Investing in adolescents has important implications for poverty reduction and economic growth, given other simultaneous, facilitating factors, such as investments in infrastructure and creation of enabling environments for labour-intensive job growth. The Cash Plus
programme is motivated by evidence that social protection in the form of cash transfers can positively influence youth well being. However, they are rarely sufficient to overcome the interrelated risks associated with adolescence.

As outlined in the Cash Plus baseline report, youth in PSSN households still face myriad challenges, such as school drop-out, early pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV, violence, abuse and exploitation. Lack of economic opportunities further hinder adolescents’ safe transition to adulthood. To address these challenges, the Cash Plus intervention leverages the impacts of the PSSN with complementary programming, including training and linkages to services to respond to their unique vulnerabilities. The ultimate objective of this programme is to facilitate safe, healthy and productive transitions to adulthood. The programme also aims to build on and further strengthen existing Local Government capacity and services related.