Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the role of non-state actors in cash transfers in Uganda and Tanzania through the way social contracts (i.e. the relations between states and citizens) have evolved historically.

Paper long abstract:

This paper suggests that the role of non-state actors in cash transfers (NSCTs) can best be explained by how social contracts (i.e. the relations between states and citizens) have evolved historically. We suggest that the nature of the social contract with regard to state distribution of resources, such as cash transfers, can be meaningfully analysed along a continuum from universalist to patronage-based and we apply this analytical lens to Tanzania and Uganda. Empirically, we show that in Tanzania NSCTs are closely integrated into the state framework of social protection, while in Uganda NSCTs primarily operate on the margins of the state and with refugee and marginalized populations. We demonstrate how the different roles of NSCTs in the two countries can be understood as part of the universalist social contract in Tanzania and the patronage-based social contract in Uganda respectively and, linked to these contrasting political set-ups, we discuss how tensions between governments and NSCTs have been handled very differently in the two countries.

Paper short abstract:

This panel explores the political economy of privately managed social cash transfers. We are particularly interested in exploring how the type of political settlement that are dominant in a given society influence privately managed social cash transfers.

Paper long abstract:

Politics matter, yes, but how? This paper explores the political economy dynamics of social cash transfers managed by private or non-state actors (NGOs, UN etc.). Where private actors’ social cash-transfer projects have rarely been drawn attention to, state-managed transfer projects have been extensively studied. Earlier studies of relations between NGOs and the state in aid-recipient countries from the 1980s and 90s, when a substantial part of donor aid was shifted from governments to international and national NGOs in the wake of structural adjustment reforms, tended to assume that the provision of public goods by NGOs would undermine the state legitimacy. However, as several studies of NGO-state relations have shown, the picture is more complex. Cash-transfer projects and service delivery by NGOs can complement the state and in some instances even increase the government’s legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens. Recent research on state-managed cash transfers suggest that ruling elites can use social cash transfers to reach out to previously marginalized populations and secure their votes, or alternatively that specific population groups can become marginalized and excluded from access to social cash transfers. The political economy of privately managed social cash transfers can therefore be expected to take different forms depending on the type of political settlement and the forms and types of patronage and clientelism that are dominant in a given society.

Paper short abstract:

Using a randomized controlled trial in south-central Somalia, this paper investigates whether social protection programs can increase participation in community-driven development programs and examine how this affects state-citizen relations.

Paper long abstract:

We investigate whether social protection programs can increase participation in community-driven development programs and examine how this affects state-citizen relations. Using a randomized controlled trial in south-central Somalia, we study the impacts of an unconditional cash transfer program to vulnerable households that was designed specifically to encourage participation in community development. We collect survey data before and after the intervention with almost 600 individuals eligible to receive cash transfers. We find no substantial differences in welfare or participation in community development projects for cash transfer recipient households relative to vulnerable non-recipient households. However, we do find positive impacts of the cash transfers on citizen perceptions of non-state community leaders and the local government, despite the local government playing no direct role in the social protection program. Our findings suggest that relatively small social protection interventions may face challenges in increasing vulnerable households’ participation in community development and decision-making, while also highlighting potential positive spillover effects for state-citizen relations in contexts with weak formal institutions.

Paper short abstract:

Non-state cash transfers have become important humanitarian and development aid in reaching out to the most vulnerable groups in the society. This paper explores the triangular social contract outcomes to the non-state actors, beneficiaries, and the state’s handling of the process in Tanzania

Paper long abstract:

This paper analyses evolving relationship between the recipient communities, non-state cash transfer organizations (NSAs) and the state in Tanzania. Non-state cash transfer actors have increasingly become more important as humanitarian and development aid turning social cash transfers into a means of reaching out to the most vulnerable groups in the society. Despite the fact that cash provisions are still new in many African countries, they have transformed the beneficiaries’ lives; and it has been argued that, cash transfers restored the lost trust between recipient communities and their governments. However, evidence regarding the effects of cash transfers on social contract relations is primarily based on the studies on state-managed cash transfers. This paper employed a mixed-method approach to explore social contract outcomes in the interface between NSAs, the state and the beneficiaries of cash transfers. To understand the relationship between cash recipients, NSAs providing cash transfers and the Tanzanian state, the empirical material was analysed using a triangular relational framework with a view to understanding the cash transfer practice, evolving relationships and social contract dynamics between the state and beneficiaries. It is worth noting that in order to understand the social contract dynamics pertaining to non-state cash transfers; it is important to scrutinize the three social relationships. The study uses World Vision and Kwa Wazee non-state cash transfer projects as case studies to particularly explore the beneficiaries’ perceptions on NSAs distributing cash and the state’s handling of the process.

Paper short abstract:

Organizations offering private cash transfers demand a selection criteria. Yet beneficiaries’ perceptions about the criteria is unknown. This paper seeks to interrogate private cash transfer beneficiaries’ perception of the selection criteria.

Paper long abstract:

The first two decades of the twenty first century have witnessed the adoption and adaption of cash transfers as a complementary and in some cases an alternative vehicle to help vulnerable groups improve their livelihoods. In sub Saharan Africa, cash transfers have been delivered by both state (public) and private (non-state) actors. While levels of adoption varies across countries, cash transfers rarely get to cover all persons who are in need. As such, different cash transfer programs have set in place selection criteria for beneficiaries.

This paper seeks to understand private cash transfer beneficiaries’ perception of the criteria used to identify and recruit beneficiaries. The paper attempts to provide answers to three critical questions: i) who selects the beneficiaries? ii) how are the beneficiaries selected? and iii) how do the beneficiaries experience the selection process and critiera?. In answering these questions, the paper use empirical data from social cash transfer projects by privately managed (NGO) organisations in Uganda and Tanzania.

Paper short abstract:

While the mainstream literature indicate that non-state cash transfers undermine the sovereignty of the state and state-society relations, practical examples show that this is not always the case as these cash transfers complement what the state is doing in improving livelihoods of the poor.

Paper long abstract:

The paper addresses the state-NGOs power relations through giving money to the poor (cash-transfers) in Tanzania. The post structural adjustment mainstream literature on NGOS in Sub-Saharan Africa, suggest that social cash transfers undermine state sovereignty and state-society relations. This paper asks: is it always the case? The paper builds upon the earlier work of Kilonzo et al, (2019: 152) on citizenship non-state organizations contributing to state projects instead of demanding from the state. Tanzania provide an alternative way of understanding active citizenship, which suggest contributing for state projects as a different ways of articulating the state-society relations. In this paper we argue that cash transfer by International NGOs, can under certain conditions complement the state’s efforts instead of destabilizing them. This is particularly the case when non-state organizations give cash directly to the needy, they are actually participating in the state development plan in addressing poor people’s livelihoods. We draw and analyze data from different actors including NGOs, national and local government levels, and cash recipients from selected projects in north-western Tanzania.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on qualitative research conducted in two districts in rural Mozambique, this paper explores why workers on public employment programmes prefer conditional cash transfers over unconditional ones, despite protesting against the drudgery involved in the former.

Paper long abstract:

“Rebenta mina” – translated as an armoured truck used to detonate landmines - is a double-sided metaphor coined by workers on the Productive Social Action Programme (PASP) to describe their experience on Mozambique’s only conditional cash transfer programme for able-bodied adults of working age. On the one hand, it describes the drudgery involved in public employment programmes; on the other hand, it alludes to the value of their labour in clearing the road for “development”. Despite the treacherous conditions, workers readily supported the PASP over proposals for unconditional cash transfers. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in two districts in rural Mozambique, this paper unpacks this paradox. It asks: what are the conditions of work on the PASP and how do conditions shape workers’ identities and aspirations? How have workers resisted, coopted or acquiesced to the PASP directives imposed by the local and national state? How has participation in the PASP shaped their expectations of the state and politics of claim making? The paper concludes that the continuing importance given to jobs is not the outcome of false consciousness as some may argue, but of a desire for meaningful livelihoods, autonomy and social recognition. In this sense, the use of the metaphor “Rebenta-mina” is itself a strategy of claim-making, used to shame the state into improving the conditions of work on public employment programmes rather than eliminating them altogether.

Paper short abstract:

Uganda adopted a 70:30 policy. It stipulates that 30% of aid is given to the host community and 70% to refugees. There is dearth academic literature detailing the practicality of this policy especially in the context of cash transfers. This paper explores the experiences of Ugandan beneficiaries.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the experiences of Ugandan beneficiaries of non-state cash transfer programmes among host communities. Uganda currently hosts 1.5 million refugees who are receiving humanitarian and development assistance from over hundred non-state actors. Often, initiatives to support refugees create a feeling of exclusion for the host population. Refugee host communities in Africa are poor, isolated and often forgotten in the periphery of the state. Uganda adopted the 70:30 policy that entitles host populations to benefit from assistance targeting refugees. The policy states that humanitarian and development assistance targeting refugee populations should distribute assistance following a 70:30 ratio, were 70% goes to the refugees and 30% the host community. However, there is a dearth of academic literature documenting the practice of this policy especially within the context of cash transfers. We know little about how host community beneficiaries experience cash transfer programmes and the 70:30 policy. This paper discusses the experiences of host-community beneficiaries of cash transfer programmes meant for refugees, their perceptions as beneficiaries and the implications on their relationship with the state and non-state actors providing the cash transfers. The findings presented are based on an ethnographic study conducted in West Nile Uganda.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net programme facilitates administrative decentralization and enhances state infrastructural power while intensifying/reconstituting state-society relations and enhancing (developmental) state-building in Ethiopia’s Somali pastoral periphery

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on the analysis of fieldwork data on the implementation of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia’s Somali region, in this paper we argue that social protection programmes facilitate administrative decentralization, enhance state infrastructural power and reconfigure state-society relations in the peripheries. As the largest donor-funded social protection programme, while managed and implemented by the Ethiopian developmental state, PSNP has been launched since 2005 reaching an estimated 10 million beneficiaries. The (sub-)kebele – the most local, decentralized state institution – has become a key administrative structure for the implementation of PSNP locally. However, (sub-)kebele administrations were not functional, if they were established at all, in the Somali pastoral periphery so that initially PSNP was implemented through clans. However, our paper shows that the implementation of PSNP, gradually, enables the establishment and/or consolidation of (sub-)kebele administrations in the Somali periphery by remobilizing PSNP fiscal resources, informally/unofficially, as key sources of financing (sub-)kebele administrations and incentivizing officials; raising competition, among different clan lineages, for political representation within (sub-)kebele administrations as political power in the (sub-)kebele is directly translated into better access to PSNP (and other state) resources; expanding infrastructure that enhances territorial reach of the state; and (re)using PSNP documentations, such as client cards as administrative documents and/or informational apparatus in making Somali nomadic pastoralists, on the one hand, visible/legible and governable subjects, and as ways of political and technical recognition of Somali pastoralists, with citizenship rights, for the (re) distribution of social transfers even beyond PSNP on the other hand. Finally, we argue that all such (unintentional) practices and effects, accompanied by diverse subtle practices, enhance state-building and create a new social contract in the periphery by intensifying/reconstituting state-society relations beyond kinship-based network and identities.