World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

WFP has launched a phone-based cash transfer pilot project for 54,000 crisis-hit Ivorians in the poorest districts of Abidjan. Here, beneficiaries wait in line to register for the SIM card that will them provide access to the cash transfers. WFP often delivers assistance to the hungry in the form of cash transfers in urban areas where there is food in the markets but the poorest cannot afford to buy it. 

Households are alerted to the transaction by a text message, which allows them to withdraw money from cash points of the local telecoms provider MTN. 

Over the project's three months, 10,000 households will receive a cash transfer of around $70 each month, equivalent to the food basket of an average family of five. Here, beneficiaries are registered for their SIM cards.

The project is taking place in Youpogon and Abobo, two of the districts in Abidjan worst-affected by the post-election crisis and where families struggle to put food on the table. Here, beneficiaries sit outside after receiving their SIM cards. 

The goal of this pilot project is to make up for the loss of purchasing power of the poorest families in recent months, to give them a bigger choice of food and to allow them to reintegrate into the local economy, boosted by this injection of money. Here, a woman holds up her SIM card that she has just received. 

A beneficiary holds the money from her cash transfer in Abobo. US$ 1.9 million will be disbursed through the project, made possible by a total donation of US$ 10.7 million from USAID to WFP's emergency operation in Côte d'Ivoire.