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    "id": 327687,
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    "content": "only way to do it is to be able to assist them have some measures that can be able to at least bring them on board in terms of national development. Again, another vulnerable group of people are the older persons. Maybe almost 5 to 10 per cent of our population in this country is aged over 60 years and above. Again, they are amongst the poorest in the country and are actually regarded as economically inactive. They are not active and, therefore, need to be supported. We have again persons with severe disabilities. Again, we are told that 10 per cent of our population is living with very severe disabilities. We know that even our social networks have collapsed. Years back, you would hear that all the children belonged to the community or they belonged to the village and everybody would take responsibility in looking after children from different families. But as you are well aware, these social networks have broken up and a lot of people are living in urban areas and the urban poor are living in slum areas. So, a lot of the things that used to happen are not happening any more. I would want to say that as Members of Parliament, you know very well that you have almost become the social security of the people that you represent. When they come to you, you know you are their last hope. You cannot say “no” to the demands they are making because you are literally the social security of the community. So, these are some of the reasons why we came up with this Bill. We are saying that if you review the social assistance programmes that are being conducted by the Government at the moment and the development partners since 2005 until 2009, there was a review that was carried out and it clearly highlighted the fact that there are a lot of inadequacies in the existing interventions. For instance, while repeated distribution of food to the poor families in the ASAL areas has kept people alive, it has not actually reduced poverty. So, you are simply keeping them alive but poverty has not been reduced. Even though the Government is spending about 0.9 per cent of its GDP on social assistance, most of the financing of these programmes comes from the development partners. So, 90 per cent of financing for social assistance is actually from development partners which again goes to highlight what we were discussing earlier on that even the northern parts of this country and some areas in this country have been left to development partners to develop them rather than the Government coming in strongly to see what programmes and projects they can carry out for its people. So, these are some of the reasons why we have come up with this Social Assistance Bill. We have looked at some of the countries that have been carrying out the social assistance programmes and they acutally had very positive impact on their citizenry. If you look at Mexico, they have something called Opportunidas Program that actually provides cash transfers and in kind transfers on condition to school-attending children. This means they support children when they go to school to encourage them to stay in school. As a result of that, there has been increased educational achievement by up to 14 per cent and improved nutrition of the children. In Ethiopia, they have what they call Productive Safety Net Programme that also provides regular cash and food transfers to about Kshs8 million to chronically food insecure people in over 290 Waridas which are like districts. The impact of this programme has been very positive and research found that they have improved food security and that the beneficiaries enjoyed an increased income."
}