A few words about SAGE

The Uganda Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) programme was an assessment run by Oxford Policy Management of ways of providing grants to impoverished families. It promises to be an important financial support programme as it is rolled out in the next 5 years under the name of the Senior Citizens Grant (SCG) programme. It is of benefit to the elderly which includes many persons with disabilities (PWDs), (see Evaluation of the SAGE Programme).

The Evaluation of the Uganda Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) Programme: Baseline report (August 2013) says

The SAGE pilot social cash transfer scheme is a key element of the Government of Uganda’s Expanding Social Protection Programme (ESPP). SAGE aims to help to tackle chronic poverty in Uganda and address the impact of poverty on social cohesion and the ability of chronically poor people to access healthcare, education and other key services.
The pilot is expected to reach around 600,000 people in about 95,000 households over a period of four years (April 2011-Feb 2015), covering approximately 15% of households in 14 targeted districts.

Originally 2 ways assessing the need for a support grant were assessed only the Senior Citizens Grant (SCG) was put in place.

Senior Citizens Grant (SCG): People above 65 years of age are registered onto the programme (above 60 years in the Karamoja region). The number of beneficiaries in a specific district and/or community will, therefore, depend on the age profile.

From Museveni to Launch Senior Citizens Grants

The Evaluation of the SAGE Programme (April 2016) summarises the findings of the programme as follows

Summary of findingsThe SAGE programme has achieved its core objective of supporting beneficiary households’ basic consumption and assuaging poverty. It has helped households to retain and build their productive assets, and it has reduced their vulnerability by supplementing their natural coping strategies in the face of shocks.
In the case of the SCG it has increased health expenditure, and even appears to be have improved health outcomes for some households. It has not caused dependency and it has reduced the burden of labour on the elderly.
Finally, the SAGE programme may have had positive spill-over effects in the local economy, in the form of increased demand for labour and stimulation of local commodity markets.
Looking beyond these core areas, SAGE does not seem to have had an impact on education, either positively or negatively, and it has had only very minimal impacts on access to financial services. It has not affected perceptions of the social contract. On the other hand, it does seem to have contributed positively to both intra- and inter-household relationships within communities.
The fact that the SAGE transfer has not significantly impacted areas beyond basic consumption implies that it is unlikely to prove transformative: it has made an often vital difference to beneficiaries’ lives, but due to the relatively low value of the transfer its potential to alter the welfare trajectories of households over the longer term is somewhat curtailed.
Policy implications
The findings of the impact evaluation of SAGE indicate that cash transfers should not be considered as a silver bullet, and that they do not necessarily impact every dimension of wellbeing...
It is welcome news that the SCG is making a qualitative difference and improving the lives of the elderly in their communities. However, the elderly are not the only vulnerable group in the population. Thus, to continue building momentum for social protection in Uganda, consideration should now be given to other initiatives to reach non-elderly vulnerable populations, such as children and the working poor.
Finally, and importantly, a major finding of the evaluation is that the relatively low value of the SAGE transfers (around 12% of total household consumption expenditure) reduced their potential to affect livelihoods and local markets, as well as potentially transformative investments in education.

In a Statement made on 21st August 2015 the Honourable Wilson Muruli Mukasa said that the SCG would be rolled out to the whole of Uganda over the next 6 years.

The Senior Citizens Grant (SCG) programme will be of great benefit to both the elderly and disabled elderly. My blog Uganda: Aging and Disability shows that 2 out of every 3 people over 60 have some form of disability. Another recent post Old Age and Disability in Uganda shows aging, poverty, loneliness and disability is a complex interaction of socioeconomic factors that will benefit greatly from this programme.