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- Convenors:
-
Kate Pruce
(Institute of Development Studies)
Isaac Chinyoka (University of Cape Town)
Nabila Idris (BRAC University)
Hangala Siachiwena (University of Cape Town)
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- Formats:
- Papers Mixed
- Stream:
- Global inequalities
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Against a backdrop of existing political and financial anxieties, COVID-19 has exacerbated inequalities globally. We invite papers that explore the politics of social protection at the juncture between old and new forces, focusing on design debates, financing challenges, and populist pressures.
Long Abstract:
Despite decades of effort to increase coverage and expenditure on social protection, including cash transfer programmes, over 4 billion people still remain systematically unprotected (ILO, 2017). The COVID-19 pandemic revealed and exacerbated these inequalities, with the poorest and the most vulnerable suffering disproportionately. Although governments responded with unprecedented horizontal and vertical expansions of social protection worldwide, their efforts were mediated by existing political institutions and degree of infrastructural (un)preparedness (Gentilini et al., 2020). In this panel, we will explore the politics of social protection at the juncture between old forces and new pressures in unsettled times.
There has been increased interest in universal basic income, although this remains a controversial policy proposal. Discussions about precarity of employment and income—caused by the pandemic but also the fourth industrial revolution—have gained traction. Debates surrounding universalism vs. targeting, financing challenges, debt restructuring, and democratic pressures from populist forces have also come to the fore.
Against a backdrop of pre-existing political trends, we invite contributions from a range of theoretical perspectives that critically engage with, but need not be limited to, the following questions and topics:
• What are the political opportunities and challenges for social protection created by the pandemic, including implications for universal vs. targeted schemes?
• How are elections and/or regressive political trends, such as populism, influencing social protection agendas and priorities?
• What do the growing financial challenges, including debt defaults and pandemic-linked recession, mean for social protection financing? What role do donors play here?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
The paper ascertains the impact of Covid-19 on state-led Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) conditional cash transfer programs in Ghana using qualitative/ethnographic methodologies. We posit a new political economy of social protection to mitigate its concomitant effects on livelihoods.
Paper long abstract:
The livelihoods and employment security of several millions of people, particularly youth, in Africa are increasingly uncertain and precarious because of infections and government-imposed restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper ascertains the impact of state-led Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) conditional cash transfer programs in Africa during COVID-19, using Ghana as a case study. Our research employs qualitative/ethnographic methodologies to explore the effects of covid-19 on livelihoods based social protection programs in Ghana. These programs are contested to have limited impact on vulnerable demographic groups and deprived households across the country and could be exacerbated by Covid-19. The paper argues that the current global pandemic and weakening of traditional safety nets in African countries because of the adoption of neoliberal policies have impaired the sustainability of many livelihoods, at the household level during this period of Covid-19 restrictions, especially for infected individuals and their households. We conclude that for LEAP to have a transforming impact on livelihood security and household wellbeing during Covid-19, the nature, extent, and scope of such programs should be redesigned considering Covid-19 restrictions and rising infection rates. We also recommend the need to increase the value of money transfers to participants who are disproportionately susceptible to Covid-19, livelihood insecurity, and extreme poverty beyond spatial targeting. We argue that a new political economy of social protection and associated policy programs should be adopted by state actors to tackle extreme poverty and mitigate the concomitant effects of Covid-19 on livelihoods sustainability and human wellbeing.
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that in Pakistan 'securitized digital governance products', such as technologies used to track and surveil citizens, have been redeployed in recent years to facilitate the relatively rapid expansion of social protection in the form of cash transfers to vulnerable households.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2009, the Benazir Income Support Program has provided regular cash payments to 4.5 million households in Pakistan. In April 2020, as a response to the economic dislocation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the government launched the Ehsaas Emergency Cash Program (EECP), disbursing Rs. 179 billion in aid to 15 million households across the country by December that year. The EECP is being envisaged as a permanent expansion of Pakistan’s existing systems of social protection.
This paper argues that Pakistan’s ability to initiate and expand its cash transfer programs, even as it struggles to reform the provision of healthcare and education, can be attributed in part to donor support for such initiatives and the development of ‘securitized digital governance products’ that have made it easier to identify, categorize, and reach potential welfare recipients. Initially developed as tools through which an authoritarian state could track and surveil the population amidst Pakistan’s involvement in the Global War on Terror, vast repositories of biometric information retained by the National Database Administration and Records Authority, as well as sophisticated mechanisms used to monitor communications, have been deployed in recent years to create a digital infrastructure that facilitates rapid cash payments to vulnerable individuals. In a context where the public provision of welfare has historically been characterized by underinvestment, inefficiency, and institutional inertia, the success of cash transfer programs in Pakistan provides interesting insights into how the uneven development of state capacity can lead to policy innovation and adoption in unexpected areas of governance.
Paper short abstract:
This study seek to appraise the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) which is a poverty alleviation scheme of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. The study revealed that the NSIP introduced in Nigeria is a scratch in the surface as poverty continue to fester.
Paper long abstract:
Poverty is a ravaging storm that has continued unabated in Nigeria despite the series of governmental intervention schemes aimed at lessening the plights of the citizens owing to the scourge of poverty. For instance, schemes such as Operation Feed the Nation, the Green Revolution, the Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP) and National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) amongst others were introduced at one time or the other in Nigeria’s developmental voyage. However, despite these interventions by the government, majority of Nigerians continue to live below the global sustenance standard of a dollar per day. This study, therefore, amongst others seek to appraise the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) which is a poverty alleviation scheme of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. The study methodology is both quantitative and qualitative as primary and secondary means of data generation was utilized. As for its theoretical framework, empowerment theory is apt for this discourse. The study revealed that the NSIP introduced to alleviate poverty in the country is a scratch the surface endeavour. The study concluded that for poverty alleviation programme to be effective, government must through fiscal measure address the widening gap of inequality arising from non-inclusivity of policy options.