Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the clashes of beliefs within SCT policy coalitions in Zambia and exposes where, between whom, and how negotiations occur. It argues that actors with competing beliefs 'talk past each other' to sustain their beneficial relations. This however jeopardizes transformative efforts.

Paper long abstract:

Recent policy and scholarly debates on the politics of adopting social protection have emphasised the importance of policy coalitions between national and transnational actors. Yet, viewing these coalitions as a monolithic group with a common set of values is hugely misleading and dilutes our understanding of where, between whom, and how negotiations occur. This paper unravels the clashes of beliefs between international donors and Ministry officials in the high-level negotiations of Zambia's first national Social Cash Transfer (SCT) scheme - the Inclusive scheme - and examines the different forms of power that were mobilized to win the policy design negotiations. The analysis is part of a larger research project on the negotiations of Zambia's welfare regime and builds on an interpretive analysis of over 50 key informant interviews with high-level actors as well as secondary literature.

The findings demonstrate that national and international actors with competing beliefs about the distribution of SCTs sustained their mutually beneficial relations discursively by 'talking past each other'. This was achieved by depoliticizing the ideological tensions through the involvement of international consultants as mediators and the mobilization of powerful technocratic values. While this strategy successfully translated donors' beliefs onto the initial policy and resulted in the formal adoption of a gender-transformative policy design, it also allowed national actors to reinterpret the policy in line with their prevailing beliefs. The paper concludes that if initiatives are to achieve transformative objectives, 'talking past each other' can not be the right strategy as it undercuts deliberation and participation.

Paper short abstract:

This paper compares and contrasts grassroots responses to cash transfer schemes in Zambia and South Africa, addressing questions of perceived deservingness, the value of care work and the influence of citizen perceptions on social protection policy design.

Paper long abstract:

How do the poor and long-term unemployed conceptualise categories of those who do (and do not) deserve to receive cash transfers? This paper builds on original qualitative data from Zambia and South Africa to tease out overlaps and variations in local views of deservingness and just (re)distribution via cash transfers. The paper explores three dimensions of citizen views of cash transfer programmes. First, even in contexts of high economic insecurity, our interlocutors insisted that those who are deserving of cash transfers are those who are physically unable to work. This finding holds across both contexts, delimiting prospects for a new politics of distribution (Ferguson, 2015). Secondly, while in both places care is rarely framed as work (and thus rarely understood to deserve economic support), views of grants aimed at children or dependents and their carers varied across the contexts. Our South African interlocutors view the Child Support Grant as an important caveat to their insistence that ‘one cannot get money for nothing’. However, in Zambia respondents raised complaints about able-bodied adults with dependents – particularly women with children – receiving government assistance. These cases raise questions about the perceived value of care work – crucial to a gender-sensitive analysis of social protection (Plagerson et al., 2017). Third, the paper explores how grassroots perceptions can directly or indirectly shape policy design, investigating ways in which the South African and Zambian states have hesitated to implement universal cash transfer policies in favour of targeting those popularly understood to be ‘deserving’ of assistance.

Paper short abstract:

This article uses a conjoint analysis to probe the attitudes and preferences a group of low-income informal settlement dwellers in Cape Town and Lusaka towards non-contributory, publicly-financed grant for the unemployed

Paper long abstract:

Public preferences for welfare provision do more than just highlight the social legitimacy of programs. They also illuminate the beliefs ordinary citizens have about fairness and justice in society. Popular perceptions about the adequacy and potentially negative downstream effects of welfare policies affect articulation and agitation for pro-poor programs, especially among the poor themselves. Previous research has identified variation between societies over policy preferences –including the purposes and conditions attached to financial support – but there is no existing comparative research into variation across Africa, where debate is focused on whether financial support should be tied to some kind of work requirement or developmental project. This article analyzes the attitudes and preferences of low-income informal settlement dwellers in Cape Town and Lusaka and finds that respondents see unemployment as a failure of government policy, and, by extension, think it just that the poor and unemployed receive money from the government. Results from a conjoint experiment, however, reveal some striking differences in how respondents evaluate the deservingness of different categories of poor : Zambian respondents greatly penalize the poor who are not job seeking, while, in South Africa, this attribute does not matter. Furthermore, South African respondents overwhelmingly prefer a public works job opportunity while Zambians prefer a once-off empowerment grant. These preferences are largely a reflection of existing opportunity structures in the two countries, but also imply that what citizens deem emancipatory is highly context-specific and should inform the reconciling of different agendas for welfare expansion on the Continent.

Paper short abstract:

This study explores how and why different gender design features of PSNP have evolved over time in view of the competing beliefs, policy preferences, and influences of various actors.

Paper long abstract:

Recent years have witnessed increased global attention and investment in integrating gender into the design of social protection interventions. But this is not an easy task as such efforts inevitably interplay with national values, preferences, and beliefs around the position of women in society. It is thus an important task to learn more about the policy processes that lead to the institutionalization of gender-responsive social protection. This paper, therefore, analyses the decision-making processes that have led to the integration of gender in the policy design of Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP). The study forms part of the Gender-Responsive and Age-Sensitive Social Protection (GRASSP) research programme, a five-year programme, led by UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, and funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). Based on a range of key informant interviews, a high-level stakeholder workshop, and the analysis of key policy documents, the paper provides detailed insights into the evolving policy negotiations between multiple national and international actors with different preferences, beliefs, and influences. It shows that as a result of the complex policy design negotiations, the PSNP has become an increasingly complex policy instrument with a jamboree of gender provisions with different objectives, underlying values, and backed by different development actors.

Paper short abstract:

The interface of norms, values and beliefs driving the interests of external aid agencies vis-à-vis those of local contexts and the concomitant gendered social (protection) outcomes remains key in understanding the future of social protection policy in Africa.

Paper long abstract:

The study of social (protection) policies and their developmental outcomes in Africa is yet to comprehensively engage with country specific ideational processes, namely ideas, values, and cultural symbols that underpins the framing of such policies. To what extent has local sociological construction of social problems which is deeply embedded in dominant cultural assumptions, values and belief systems in South Africa, Zambia and Mauritius interfaced with those driving the interests of international aid agencies and with what gendered social (protection) policy outcomes? If value is determined locally, rather than externally imposed, and by social groups that have different vantage points, what is the future of social (protection) policy in South Africa, Zambia and Mauritius? The latter remains particularly important from a gender perspective as the process of assigning value is political and emerges from people who are not only of unequal social status but also acting within specific social order. What cross-learning can be drawn from the three cases under investigation for the future of social (protection) policy in Africa? The paper draws from the study of social (protection) policy trajectories in South Africa, Zambia and Mauritius from the pre-independence period with a view to imagine the possibility of a gender equitable and transformative social policy in a post-COVID-19 Africa.

Key words: Gender, social (protection) policy, norms, values, beliefs, South Africa, Zambia, Mauritius.