Background

The Nutrition Improvements through Cash and Health Education (NICHE) falls under the Kenya Social Economic and Inclusion Programme (KSEIP) that seeks to increase access to social and economic inclusion interventions. The programme is designed to improve the nutritional status of children in their first 1,000 days of life based on positive results of a pilot that was undertaken by the Government and UNICEF in Kitui County in 2017.

From the results of this pilot, the Government through the support of World Bank, DFID, UNICEF and other Development partners agreed to scale up NICHE Program to 4 other Counties with high rates of malnutrition evidenced by stunting and wasting among children namely; West Pokot, Turkana, Marsabit and Kilifi for a period of 5 years.

As a complementary programme that combines provision of cash and nutrition counselling NICHE seeks to improve social protection through cash interventions in the life cycle. It targets members in the existing households of Inua Jamii cash transfer programmes, that is, Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, Cash Transfer for Older Persons, Cash Transfer for Persons with Severe Disability and Hunger Safety Net Cash Transfer. A cash transfer top-up is provided to improve health outcomes for both women (pregnant and lactating mothers) and children up to 2 years in the participating counties. A household with one child who is under 2 years or pregnant mother will qualify for a top-up of KSh.500 per month while household with more than two children under the age of 2 years or more than two pregnant mothers will qualify for Ksh.1000 per month.

The programme will have an additional child protection component in Kilifi County on a pilot basis. It will provide a platform to strengthen child protection through adequate nutrition, security, safety and responsive care by introducing child protection interventions in positive parenting initiatives, violence against children (VAC) response and prevention, and promotion of alternative family-based care.

NICHE objectives:    

The overall goal is to ensure that most vulnerable children in intervention areas of selected counties, show improved well-being in the areas of nutrition, social protection and child protection.

Target

Overall, the programme aimed to reach 23,500 households with nutrition-sensitive cash transfer a means to improve well-being in nutrition, child protection and social protection. However the number keeps fluctuating due to exit of beneficiaries based on age.

Eligibility Criteria

Beneficiaries will be registered into the NICHE program if they are;

• Permanent residents of Kitui, Kilifi, Marsabit, Turkana, West Pokot Counties,  Garissa, Mandera, Samburu, Wajir, Isiolo and Tana River
• Living in a household already in receipt of a National Safety Net Programme (NSNP) cash transfer, or the Hunger Safety Net Programme (HSNP)
• A pregnant woman or a child of under the age of 15 months (at the point of first enrolment)

Payment

Each NICHE beneficiary will receive a top-up transfer of KSh. 500 up to a household cap of KSh. 1,000 per month, in the event of two or more beneficiaries.  Considering the payments will be made bi-monthly (every two months) alongside the households’ core transfers, the households will therefore receive top ups of KES 1,000 (in case of a single beneficiary) or KES2,000 (in case of multiple beneficiaries). Payment of NICHE top-ups will follow the same systems and procedures as those for core NSNP transfers – in which case Directorate of Social Assistance (DSA) will be responsible for making the top up payments through the contracted payment service providers.

Access to NICHE : CLICK HERE