Mpox cash transfers from Mastercard Foundation and UNICEF impact survivors’ lives

Within six months after mpox broke out in Uganda in July 2024, it had severely affected over two thousand persons in different age brackets. With the slow recovery taking from two weeks to three months, the physical ravage on the body was in most cases accompanied by livelihood disruption and loss of income.

A humanitarian intervention rolled out by UNICEF and financially supported by the Mastercard Foundation targeting 1,300 households each of which had least one victim, has yielded impressive results showing that even small amounts of cash disbursed at the right time can make a huge difference, restoring hope by transforming lives from destitution to restoration of hope, recovery and a new sense of purpose.

A uniform amount in a one-off payout of US$36 -equal to UGX 133,200 in local currency- has in some cases not just restored recipient families to pre-breakout levels but has triggered some of them to dream even bigger and take steps towards attaining a new level of economic operation. Such was the case of Alex Wepondi, a 36-year-old a local preacher in Mukono 21 kilometres east of Kampala city, who for several years has been surviving by growing vegetables on a small plot measuring 40 x 50 feet that he rents in a swamp at Ugx70,000 shillings (about US$20) per season of six months. He grows sukuma wiki, a hardy cabbage variety, and had just renewed his plot “lease” when the disease struck his six-months baby during last Christmas season. 

When Alex got the US$36 by mobile money transfer on his phone, he stocked grain to last his family of four –a wife and two boys – for two months. He then used the rest of the money to buy tomato seeds which he planted in anticipation of harvesting during the prime Christmas period this year and earn enough to lease a full acre farther from town for a full year. He believes this will not only help his family stop living from hand to mouth but lead to income security as he will be able to buy land so that while taking his children to better schools, he will also train them in market gardening on their family-owned property.

Danny Kyazze, a middle-aged timber worker lives in the opposite direction of the capital city, Kampala’s outskirts of Kazo. He is recovering from mpox which brought him down last Christmas in 2024. Failing to resume work after discharge from hospital, his wife deserted him and their 10-year-old son. To numb the pain of hunger, Kyazze learnt to smoke some marijuana and eventually became addicted. A sister from afar picked up the child and Kyazze left wasting away.

A para-social worker had him enrolled onto the cash transfer programme and when he received the money, he used it all to stock up on food. Resuming to eat gradually restored his strength and Kyazze has been scouted by a new timber workshop in Kazo that lets him perform light work for them. He already earns some money and hopes to resume fulltime work and find another wife.

Further westwards in the major township of Wakiso lives Halima Nabitandikwa, a small-time poultry farmer and mother of six boys. Her 10-year-old son was severely hit by mpox and during the treatment period, she depleted all her working capital. She stocks a hundred freshly hatched chicks which she ‘grows’ intensively for a month and sells to the roadside chicken roasters. She had no money left for the feeds and her lot of hundred birds were facing starvation.

Then the cash transfer “hit” her phone. Without hesitation, she bought feeds, and her birds were saved in the nick of time. Life returned to normal and her children and safely back in school.

The case of Shifra Nabatanzi also from Wakiso was somewhat similar Halima’s, only more precarious. The single mother of five had three of them seriously infected with Mpox and she even sold precious mattress to feed them. Normally surviving by growing food on borrowed land and making soil bricks for sale, she had become too weak to do any work.

When she received the cash transfer, she spent all of it on food and when her energy started returning, made a thousand bricks, bought firewood and assembled the kiln to bake them. She then resumed tending her gardens and sending her children back to school.

Hanifa Nabweteme is a single mother of two teenage girls who runs small soft drinks kiosk in a trading centre off the highway to Hoima in western Uganda. When she was got mpox, customers automatically shunned her kiosk and soon she couldn’t even buy food. More than the physical pain, she feared the specter of her girls dropping out of school. As starvation became acute, she mortgaged her most valuable possession, the fridge, from the kiosk to a moneylender. Even after recovery, she couldn’t sell any drinks due to lack of a fridge, given the hot weather.

On getting the cash transfer, Hanifa simply re-transferred it to the moneylender and regained her fridge. Just like first aid matters more to an accident victim than a sophisticated hospital farther away, the small cash transfer saved her family from imminent starvation.

Since July 2024, the mpox outbreak in Uganda had spread to over 65 per cent of districts, significantly increasing vulnerabilities among affected households. Many individuals required between two weeks and three months to fully recover, leading to medical expenses, lost income, and economic instability.

In response, UNICEF Uganda, with funding from the Mastercard Foundation implemented a humanitarian cash transfer program to provide timely financial assistance to households with children. This initiative aimed to ease the economic strain caused by the outbreak, helping families maintain their well-being and access essential services both during and post recovery. By addressing lingering financial burdens even after recovery, the program supported a smooth transition back to economic stability of the households.

The cash transfer program aimed to support households with children affected by mpox in meeting their basic and immediate needs, such as healthcare, food, and transportation. It sought to alleviate financial burdens caused by medical expenses and lost income while enhancing household resilience

The intervention targeted the five most affected districts on: (i) Kampala, (ii) Luwero, (iii) Mukono, (iv) Nakasongola and (v) Wakiso.