International donors, domestic politics, and the expansion of social cash transfers in Malawi

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SummaryMotivationInternational donors piloted social cash transfers in Africa in the 2000s. Successful pilots need to be expanded, to be nationally owned, and to be funded by regular budgets. How this may be done depends on domestic politics, which vary by country. Donors need to engage with local politics if they wish their pilots to be institutionalized. Malawi is one such case, where a change of president opened a window for policy reforms.PurposeWhy were donors, over six years, unable to persuade Bingu wa Mutharika's government of Malawi to adopt social cash transfers; but succeeded with Joyce Banda's administration within two months of her being in office?Methods and approachI adopt John Kingdon's multiple streams framework, originally developed in 1984 to explain how agenda are set in the USA. He observed separate streams of problems, potential policy responses, and politics which may converge at critical junctures—policy windows—when new policies may be adopted. I interviewed 25 policy‐makers in Malawi, including political leaders, donor staff, government civil servants, and civil society officers to trace policy‐making for social cash transfers.FindingsMalawi can be seen to have a super‐presidential system, in which presidents and their closest allies overwhelmingly set the agenda, aligned to their ideological views and political interests. When presidents change, a policy window opens. Mutharika prioritized increasing the maize harvest and stabilizing the economy. The input subsidies used to achieve the former, he saw as “home‐grown” solutions, were preferred to donor orthodoxies. Social protection was for him another donor orthodoxy. It did not align with his beliefs and conflicted with his interests in food security. When Mutharika died suddenly in 2012, Vice‐President Banda took over. Her experience was different to that of her predecessor: she had worked with civil society, was acutely aware of poverty, and had good relations with external non‐governmental organizations and donors. She saw priorities in rising vulnerability and exclusion, she favoured safety nets, and was anxious to gain support for her administration. Social protection came rapidly into favour, pilots were expanded into a national programme.Policy implicationsPolitical leaders support programmes that benefit both development and political survival. Understanding how a brief policy window opened in 2006 (for a draft social support policy) before a larger window opened in 2012, shows both inflection points happened when donor framing on social protection aligned with the ideas and interests of ruling elites. Three useful lessons emerge for donors promoting social protection. First, alignment of ideas and interests matter more than persuasion. Second, framing of social protection should consider domestic politics—in this case the political utility of cash transfers compared to farm subsidies. Third, the interplay of ideas and interests matters—in this case an incoming president faced by an economic crisis while trying to consolidate power saw social protection as a way to alleviate the crisis and build support. Kingdon's framework serves well to analyse this case, but not entirely. It focuses on the ideas and interests of the elites, and may ignore changing ideas among citizens in which Malawi's elites maintained the farm subsidies while citizens grew increasingly sceptical of their value.