Impact of Cash Transfers on Poverty Reduction towards Achieving Sustainable Development Goals among Female-Headed Households in Siaya County, Kenya.

Abstract

Poverty rate is still high among developing economies; 8 years post adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda of 2030. Cash transfers have popularly become one of the ways to support implementation of SDGs. This study focused on the Inua Jamii-CT programme whose principal objective was to establish the impact of cash transfer on poverty reduction towards achieving SDGs among femaleheaded households in Siaya County. The study was founded on the Household Welfare Theory where household welfare is best measured in terms of income and consumption decisions of the household. The study targeted the 109,680 female-headed households in Siaya County. The Yamane formula arrived at a sample of 399 households. A correlational design was adopted and 377 respondents realized. An analysis of descriptive statistics of respondent household demographics revealed that 214 of the households receive cash transfers against 163 who don’t. The average household expenditure was on food and farm inputs. The female-head was averagely 49 years old, 52.2% were of good health and 85.7% had reached only primary level of education. The household had a mean of 5 members. 51.7% of the female-heads belonged to a social group. 41.4% of the female-head earned their income from farming and 36.3% from small businesses. A binary logit regression model determined that cash transfer, income, household consumption were significant predictors of SDGs among FHHs in Siaya County with P values of less than 0.05. The R2 of 0.3 showed a 30% goodness of fit for the model. The coefficients of cash transfer and income are β1=-0.935 and β2=- 0.689 respectively, hence, increasing cash transfers and income reduces poverty. There was a negligible relationship between household consumption and SDGs β3=0.0004. Conclusion was drawn that CT was significant in the achievement of the SDGs. The study recommends a targeted programme design to ensure more income generating activities and good farming practices.