Social Cash Transfers Research Articles

Do social cash transfers bridge the wellbeing gender gap in developing countries? The case of Ghana’s LEAP programme

ABSTRACT Gender inequality remains a significant problem in Ghana with many women socially and economically disadvantaged. Social protection interventions, in particular cash transfer programmes, have the potential to increase wellbeing and reduce gender gaps in poor households. This article analyses the wellbeing differences between men and women beneficiaries of Ghana's Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme. Using a multiple regression moderation interaction model, we analyse six wellbeing dimensions (financial, health, education, food, housing and social) of 322 LEAP cash transfer beneficiaries in Ghana's KEEA district. We found that female-headed households achieve better wellbeing than male-headed households when LEAP income is paid at regular intervals. Regular LEAP payments also reduce gender gaps in wellbeing. These findings contribute to the design of policies seeking to bridge the wellbeing gap between men and women.

Reconstruction of the social cash transfers system in Poland and household wellbeing: 2015–2018 evidence

This study examines the impact of changes in the social benefits system on the wellbeing, poverty, and economic activity in Poland. The core element of those changes was a programme of large cash transfers, referred to as Family 500+, introduced in 2016. It was intended to support families with children, especially the least affluent ones, and to foster fertility. The impact of the transfers has been examined through the observation of changes in the monetary and multidimensional wellbeing of households. The study also analysed the changes in recipients’ economic activity using estimates of regression models and treatment effects. The Family 500+ programme proved to be successful as an anti-poverty tool and also resulted in the increase in the average wellbeing for the whole population. However, its side-effects included the fall in the economic activity of some recipients, especially in 2016 and 2017. The above trends partly reversed in 2018. As some income data in the lower parts of the distribution seemed to be flawed, income imputations, based on regression on income correlates, were applied in the study.

Narrative research on the capabilities of widows receiving social cash transfer

The aim of this study was to examine the capabilities of widows in Turkey who received social cash transfers after the death of their husbands in the context of Nussbaum's capabilities approach, starting from their childhood, before and after the death of their husbands. The study used a narrative design, one of the qualitative research designs. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 participants selected through snowball sampling. Thematic analysis of the data in MAXQDA 2022 program was conducted according to Nussbaum's ten basic capabilities principles. The results revealed that the participants' limited capabilities, starting from their childhood years, were transformed into multiple disadvantages during marriage, the death of the spouse, and later life processes. Becoming a “widow” at the end of such a life cycle not only led to dependency on social cash transfers in the fight against poverty, but also did not create opportunities to expand their capabilities.

Differences in condom access and use and associated factors between persons with and without disabilities receiving social cash transfers in Luapula province, Zambia—A cross-sectional study

Differences in condom access and use and associated factors between persons with and without disabilities receiving social cash transfers in Luapula province, Zambia—A cross-sectional study

What Would Happen to Poverty in Africa if Most Aid Were Delivered as Social Cash Transfers? A Case Study of Uganda

This article explores the potentially game-changing idea of repurposing a major part of overseas development assistance (ODA) to fund the up-scaling of social cash transfers (SCTs) in Africa. The analysis contributes to the debate about how best to use global development aid by considering the idea of simply bypassing the aid industry and instead giving most funds directly to the poor. With Uganda as a case study, we use the UGAMOD microsimulation model to analyse the socio-economic impact of using a major part of the current aid envelope, which for 2017–2020 was on average 2.37 billion USD, to provide two types of SCTs, namely old-age pensions and child grants. The scenarios analysed include both universal and means-tested SCTs at different cost levels, ranging between 4 and 115 per cent of current annual ODA in Uganda. We demonstrate that allocating a major part of ODA to SCTs would, seen in isolation, lead to very considerable reductions in poverty. In one tested scenario, where most ODA is allocated for universal child support, it is predicted that about two-thirds of current poverty would be eliminated. Importantly, however, large-scale SCTs would also come with significant socio-economic allocation costs, as aid is shifted away from its current uses, much of which goes to the social sectors. We discuss what this may imply for government revenue generation and the timing of any potential scaling of SCTs. Lastly, we note that scaling of SCTs would have political economy implications, which would need to be better understood.

Politicization of Non-state Cash Transfers: The Cases of Uganda and Tanzania

Social cash transfers (CTs) have expanded considerably in Africa over the last decade. While the largest programmes are run by public institutions, non-state actors are increasingly becoming involved, but have attracted less academic attention. CTs are particular in that they are more fungible and liquid than other types of welfare provision, meaning that they are more difficult to control for both providers and governments. This article explores state strategies in relation to CTs by non-state actors focusing on when and how they are politicized. We analyse politicization from two intertwined vantage points. Firstly, we argue that the distributional logic in a society’s social contract contributes to understanding how and when cash transfers become politicized. We analyse the distributional logic along a continuum from universalist to partisan and apply this analytical lens to Tanzania and Uganda. Secondly, we suggest that politicization is intertwined with how the states coordinate non-state-CTs. We show that in Tanzania non-state-CTs are integrated into the state’s framework of social protection, while in Uganda they primarily operate on the margins of the state. In both cases, however, the state retains control over non-state-CTs and uses them politically, albeit in different ways, in order to maintain its relations with important constituencies. Hence, our analytical framework, which combines analysis of the distributional logic in the social contract and the mode of coordination, enables us to unpack when and how non-state-CTs are politicized, as well as how the tensions between governments and non-state-CTs have been handled differently in the two countries.

Modelling structural breaks in social cash transfers effects on poverty and inequality reduction in Africa: A case of Nigeria

Poverty and inequality have become persistent challenges, hindering sustainable growth in African countries. Against this backdrop, the Nigerian government introduced social cash transfer (SCT) programmes to provide targeted financial assistance to vulnerable populations and foster inclusive social welfare. However, the impact has been somewhat indefinable given the continued increase in poverty and inequality levels in Nigeria. Thus, this present study focuses on the effect of SCT on poverty, inequality, and macroeconomic instability in Nigeria using secondary data for the periods of 1984 to 2021. The results of the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares with structural breaks showed that SCT reduced poverty and inequality levels, but increased macroeconomic instability in Nigeria; however, when we considered the institutional peculiarities (control of corruption and accountability in the public sector), the findings showed that SCT increased poverty level in Nigeria. We report other significant findings that are instructive to policymaking and future research.

The Interplay between Social Cash Transfers and Elections in Zambia

The Interplay between Social Cash Transfers and Elections in Zambia

The combined effect of social pensions and cash transfers on child mortality: evaluating the last two decades in Brazil and projecting their mitigating effect during the global economic crisis

The world is currently experiencing multiple economic crises due to the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, and inflation surge, which disproportionately affect children, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We evaluated if the expansion of Social Assistance, represented by Social Pensions (SP) and Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT), could reduce infant and child mortality, and mitigate excess deaths among children in Brazil, one of the LMICs most affected by these economic crises. We conducted a retrospective impact evaluation in a cohort of Brazilian municipalities from 2004 to 2019 using multivariable fixed-effects negative binomial models, adjusted for relevant demographic, social, and economic factors, to estimate the effects of the SP and CCT on infant and child mortality. To verify the robustness of the results, we conducted several sensitivity and triangulation analyses, including difference-in-difference with propensity-score matching. These results were incorporated into dynamic microsimulation models to generate projections to 2030 of various economic crises and Social Assistance scenarios. Consolidated coverage of SP was associated with significant reductions in infant and child mortality rates, with a rate ratio (RR) of 0.843 (95% CI: 0.826-0.861) and 0.840 (95% CI: 0.824-0.856), respectively. Similarly, CCT consolidated coverages showed RRs of 0.868 (95% CI: 0.842-0.849) and 0.874 (95% CI: 0.850-0.899) for infant and child mortality, respectively. The higher the degree of poverty in the municipalities, the stronger the impact of CCT on reducing child mortality. Given the current economic crisis, a mitigation strategy that will increase the coverage of SP and CCT could avert 148,736 (95% CI: 127,148-170,706) child deaths up to 2030, compared with fiscal austerity measures. SP and CCT programs could strongly reduce child mortality in LMICs, and their expansion should be considered as an effective strategy to mitigate the impact of the current multiple global economic crises. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant_Number:INV-027961. Medical Research Council(MRC-UKRI),Grant_Number:MC_PC_MR/T023678/1.

The politics of ‘institutionalising’ social protection in Africa: The retrenchment of social cash transfers in Zambia, 2015–2021

AbstractSocial protection has expanded unevenly across Africa because of variations in both the initial adoption of programmes and their subsequent ‘institutionalisation’ through government-funded expansions in coverage. The case of Zambia illustrates how policy coalitions promoting the institutionalisation of social protection compete with other claimants over prioritisation in public spending. Even when faced with competitive elections, incumbent governments may prioritise other programmes over social protection. In Zambia, the incumbent government announced and budgeted for a massive government-funded expansion of social protection but failed to allocate the necessary funding – with the result that benefits were not paid to registered beneficiaries. If ‘institutionalisation’ is understood as entailing the political irreversibility of expansion, then the rhetoric of institutionalisation belied the reality (for several years) of retrenchment. The weakened policy coalition supporting social protection was unable to prevent government defunding as scarce government resources were allocated to competing programmes.

Climate shocks, vulnerability, resilience and livelihoods in rural Zambia

ABSTRACT Climate and weather shocks pose risks to livelihoods in Southern Africa. We assess the extent to which smallholders are exposed to climate shocks in Zambia and how behavioural choices influence the negative effects of these shocks on vulnerability and resilience. We use household data from the nationally representative Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Survey and employ an instrumental variable probit regression model to control for the endogeneity of key choice variables. There are four main findings. First, droughts are the most prevalent climate shock faced by rural smallholder farmers in Zambia, but the extent of exposure differs spatially, with the Southern and Western Provinces being the hardest hit. Nationally, 76% of all smallholder farmers are vulnerable and only 24% are resilient, with female households most vulnerable. Second, increased climate shocks correlate with both increased vulnerability and reduced resilience, with short- and long-term deviations in seasonal rainfall worsening vulnerability and resilience. Third, higher asset endowments and education are correlated with reduced vulnerability and increased resilience. And last, climate-smart agricultural practices significantly improve household resilience. These findings imply a need to support scaling of climate-smart agricultural technologies and to invest in risk mitigation strategies such as weather-indexed insurance and targeted social cash transfers.

A framework to assess the role of social cash transfers in building adaptive capacity for climate resilience

ABSTRACT Climate change is increasingly affecting vulnerable groups and resulting in dire social and economic consequences, especially for those in the Global South. Managing current and emerging climate-related risks will require increasing individual’s and communities’ resilience, including enhancing absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities. Policymakers are now considering the role that social protection policies and programmes can play in building climate resilience by contributing to these capacities. However, there is a limited understanding of the extent to which social protection instruments can influence these three resilience-related capacities. Lack of assessment tools or frameworks might contribute to limited evidence of social protection’s ability to increase climate resilience. In particular, there appear to be no frameworks or tools that help assess the role of social cash transfers (SCT) in building adaptive capacity. Based on a multi-staged literature review, we develop an adaptive capacity outcomes framework (ACOF) that can help assess SCT’s contribution to building adaptive capacity, and, consequently, resilience. The framework is then tested using impact evaluation and assessment reports from SCT programmes in Indonesia, Zambia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and Tanzania. The exercise finds that SCTs alone have a limited contribution to adaptive capacity outcomes, but interventions that combine cash transfers with other components such as nutrition or livelihood training show positive impacts. We find that the ACOF can support assessments of SCT’s contribution towards adaptive capacity. It can help build evidence, evaluate impacts, and through further research, can facilitate learning on SCTs' role in increasing climate resilience.

PERCEPTIONS, MANAGEMENT METHODS AND CONFLICTS ASSOCIATED WITH SOCIAL CASH TRANSFERS IN RURAL NIGER

Following the example of other African countries, Niger has also set up a social safety net system based on two major programmes: the cash transfer programme and the cash-for-work programme implemented by a project which now constitutes a permanent institutional mechanism of the State. The aim of this system is to strengthen the resilience of poor people suffering from food and nutritional insecurity by regularly transferring them a minimum amount of financialresources. This study focuses on the first programme, cash transfers. It examines the strategies used by beneficiaries to control and manage cash by analysing the perceptions of key players regarding the principles of the intervention. The results show a diversity of ways in which cash is managed and used, which largely reflects the socio-demographic characteristics of the beneficiaries. In addition, the study reveals a number of problems surrounding this cash intervention, which has now become a real dilemma for certain players in the face of the populations lack of understanding.

The Politics of Knowledge and Social Cash Transfers: The Constitutive Effects of an Anti-Poverty Regime in Indonesia

Recent decades have witnessed the globalisation of policies promoting social cash transfers as a critical instrument for poverty reduction. Among various approaches, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) model promoted by the World Bank has gained discursive dominance in countries where this strategy, and its technical model for implementation, appear more attractive than competing alternatives. While research has evaluated CCT programmes and considered the politics of development that they represent in Latin America, researchers are yet to explore the constitutive effects of CCT ways of knowing and measuring poverty in the societies of rural Asia. This paper explores the consequences of CCT knowledge politics in rural Indonesia. It argues that CCT practices of knowing and measuring have paradoxical effects. The programme makes direct payments to millions of impoverished households, producing well-documented patterns of inclusion and advancement. Yet, CCT knowledge practices involve simplifications and generate significant mis-targeting, eliciting a never-ending repair process among state actors, local leaders, and communities. This metricised knowledge system depoliticises political questions of distribution. It conceals alternative ways of knowing and addressing poverty, producing an order of entitlements somewhat at odds with established community logics of inclusion, while provoking a local politics of distribution.

Reshaping state–citizen relationships through donor‐designed targeting systems in Lesotho and Malawi

AbstractSocial and humanitarian cash transfers in sub‐Saharan Africa are increasingly used to support a wide range of vulnerable populations with long‐term support or immediate relief. Designing and implementing cash transfers typically involves a range of transnational actors and government stakeholders who continuously exert power which in turn affects state–citizen relations. The data informing this article come from 109 key informant interviews with (inter)national‐level stakeholders involved in three social cash transfers and two humanitarian cash transfers in Lesotho and Malawi. This article argues that donor‐designed targeting approaches in Lesotho and Malawi create space for new state–citizen relations, but that these are relatively shallow and reconfigured once technical capacity allows for targeting approaches that rely less on communities. It contributes to the literature on the role of transnational actors in social protection by showing that their role is significant when it comes to creating new redistributive relations, even if transnational actors are unable to convince host governments to take full fiscal responsibility for their initiatives due to differing views on who deserves what kind of support.

The role of elected politicians in donor‐led social protection: Insights from Zambia

AbstractElected politicians sit at the interface between the state and the citizens and play a critical role in shaping the social contract. This article presents rare insights into the participation of elected politicians in donor‐led social protection policy processes in Africa. Taking the case of Zambia, it uncovers the assigned and de facto roles and perceptions of Members of Parliament (MPs) in social cash transfers policy processes. The analysis reveals the agency of MPs, despite intense efforts of donors to influence and control them. Specifically, it demonstrates that donors' advocacy and learning initiatives largely failed to influence their views and values of social justice which underpin state‐society relations. Instead, MPs learned about the policy narratives of donors, enabling them to strategically employ those narratives to sustain donor relations. The article suggests that for donor‐led social protection to modify state‐society relations, MPs' active participation, full support, and deliberation are indispensable.

Review of social policy in the African context

Rescuing social policy in Africa is what this book sets out to do. The book is positioned against two trends seen to have subjugated social development on the continent: The neoliberal agenda that swept across Africa from the 1970s onwards with social policy only playing a residual role. And the current trend of focusing on social cash transfers despite this merely being one aspect of social policy. To emancipate social policy, Prof. Adesina and his colleagues suggest studying social development in Africa through the lens of ‘transformative social policy’ (TSP). The concept of TSP was developed by the late, eminent scholar Prof. Mkandawire. In the first three chapters, his previous colleagues at Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa and United Nations Research Institute for Social Development discuss the concept of TSP and its potential. Adesina highlights how TSP aims at the advancement of human well-being through the integration of social and economic policies and by focusing on social policies’ multiple tasks; the ‘objectives of social policy measures are transformative of the economy, social relations, social institutions and deepening democracy’ (p. 3). Aina discusses how TSP can be related to promoting inclusive development and suggests looking at the founders of modern African nations who regarded social policy as essential in their aspirations for development. Hujo too provides ideas on how to rethink social policy in the African context. All three authors tend to position TSP against neoliberalism and the dominant cash transfer paradigm, rather than pinning down the exact nature of TSP. Mostly, TSP is about what it should achieve: a better world and human flourishing; social policy is transformative when tackling structural inequalities and inequities. Nevertheless, the broad conceptualization of social policy allows for an open and potentially more holistic and integrated view of social policies’ potential for development. This is well illustrated by the remaining chapters in the volume.

Impact of community-based health insurance on healthcare utilisation and out-of-pocket expenditures for the poor in Senegal

ObjectivesThis study aims to assess the impact of the subsidised community health insurance scheme in Senegal particularly on the poor.Design and settingThe study used data from a household survey conducted...

'Five minutes earlier, you were giving hope': Reflections from interviews with doctors conducting assessments for South Africa's childhood disability Care Dependency Grant.

Background: In South Africa, medical doctors functionally decide whether a primary caregiver can access state-funded social assistance cash transfers ('social grants') for the care of their disabled child. In this paper, we unpack the subjective experiences of one group of doctors in the country's Western Cape province who are involved in conducting assessments for the care dependency grant, designed to support the cost of disabled children's specific needs. Methods: Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with five paediatric doctors who practice at three Cape Town public sector hospitals and regularly conduct assessments for the care dependency grant. Analysis was thematic and used deductive coding. Results: The doctors we interviewed were aware that care dependency grants were probably shared among household members but felt this was acceptable, as it contributed to the child's wellbeing. Doctors seemed to be applying nuanced, individualised assessments but often felt the need to simplify the documentation of these assessments, sometimes even bending the rules, to ensure access. Doctors' primary allegiance in these processes appeared to be to their patients. They identified more with their care responsibilities than their bureaucratic gate-keeping role but nonetheless felt the weight of their responsibility for decision-making, in the context of extremely strained public resources and a lack of guidance from the government's social assistance implementation agency. Conclusions: The hyperlocal practices and approaches that doctors described allows for perception of the messier - but also more accurate - details of the system that is actually in place. Doctors' narratives also reflect long-standing inattention to the 'trickle down' of guidelines to frontline implementers of disability-related grants. This cadre is a valuable but under-utilised source of evidence and information about the real-world functioning of disability-related grants administration and they should be actively included in implementation planning.

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

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.