During 2009's six-months insecticide spraying season we managed the weekly payment of cash stipends to 1,600 spraying operatives working on the USAID/US President's Malaria Initiative-supported indoor residual spraying programme. The money was delivered by security vehicles to payment offices set up throughout the mosquito-infested districts.
The following year, 2010, Crown Agents Kenya was engaged by Kenya's Ministry of Health to provide the same service to a similar spraying programme financed by the Global Fund. Here we supported 2,200 operatives, using the newly-available mobile telephone-based money transfer service, M-PESA, which did away with the need for payees to travel to payment centres to collect their pay. M-PESA allowed beneficiaries to withdraw cash from any participating retail outlet, to send money to their families, and to pay bills electronically.
By using the latest technology we were able to provide a more secure service for our client, and to save large numbers of sprayers the inconvenience of travelling (often on foot) to a payment centre.
In Zimbabwe, and in collaboration with Crown Agents Bank, we are managing a different sort of payroll by paying salary supplements to 20,000 essential hospital staff under heath worker retention programmes funded by several UN agencies and international donors.