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

Hangala Siachiwena, J. Seekings
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Abstract

Social 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.
非洲社会保护 "制度化 "的政治:2015-2021 年赞比亚社会现金转移的缩减
社会保护在整个非洲的扩展并不均衡,这是因为在最初采用计划以及随后通过政府资助扩大覆盖范围实现 "制度化 "方面都存在差异。赞比亚的案例说明了促进社会保护制度化的政策联盟如何与其他申请者争夺公共支出的优先权。即使面临竞争激烈的选举,现任政府也可能会优先考虑其他计划,而不是社会保护。在赞比亚,现任政府宣布由政府出资大规模扩大社会保护范围,并为此编制了预算,但却没有拨付必要的资金--结果是没有向登记的受益人支付福利金。如果将 "制度化 "理解为扩张的政治不可逆转性,那么制度化的言辞就掩盖了(几年来)缩减的现实。由于稀缺的政府资源被分配给了相互竞争的项目,支持社会保护的政策联盟被削弱,无法阻止政府的资金缩减。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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