Vulnerability and social protection in Malawi

Vulnerability appears to be rising for many Malawians, whose exposure to livelihood shocks is increasing while their ability to cope is decreasing. The first part of this report draws on recently published studies and analysis of the 2004/05 Integrated Household Survey dataset to explore the nature of vulnerability in Malawi. Most livelihoods in Malawi depend on agriculture, but agricultural vulnerability is extremely high due to erratic rainfall, inequality in landholdings, constrained access to inputs, limited diversification and weak markets. Noneconomic factors that compound economic risks include demographic and health risks, gendered vulnerabilities, social change and governance failures. Economic vulnerability, defined as the risk of future monetary poverty, is high because of the heavy concentration of Malawians clustered close to the poverty line, and because of the frequency and severity of covariant shocks such as droughts, floods and food price fluctuations, as well as idiosyncratic shocks such as accidents, illness and death of family members. The economic, demographic and social impacts of HIV/AIDS are especially devastating. Monetary and subjective indicators of vulnerability are related to demographic characteristics (female- and older-headed households, orphans), lack of assets, geographic location (with a north-south gradient of rising vulnerability) and multiple shocks. Policy priorities derived from this analysis include: stabilise food prices, enhance access to agricultural inputs, and identify labour-saving technologies for labour-constrained households. More generally, social protection and livelihood promotion measures, together with an enabling environment, are central to addressing vulnerability in Malawi. The second part of this report reviews a range of ongoing and discontinued social protection mechanisms in Malawi. Free inputs distribution (‘Starter Packs’) followed the abolition of fertiliser subsidies in the 1990s, and had positive impacts on food production and prices. Public works programmes (food-, cash- or inputs-for-work), social funds (the Malawi Social Action Fund) and food transfers (food aid, school feeding) also have long histories in Malawi, but have demonstrated limited impacts. Finally, unconditional cash transfers are increasingly popular, which this review endorses with the qualification that ongoing pilot projects need to be institutionalised within a comprehensive, government owned, national social protection strategy. Keywords: Malawi, poverty, social protection, vulnerability

Richer but Resented: What do Cash Transfers do to Social Relations?

Cash transfers are an increasingly important component of social protection systems in most countries. Usually, cash transfers are evaluated against their effects on poverty or human capital, with their impact on social relations within and between households relegated to discrete comments on ‘stigma’, ‘resentment’ and sharing, including reduction of remittances and other support. Using evidence from Oxford Policy Management's evaluations of cash transfer programmes in Malawi and Zimbabwe, we suggest reconceptualising cash transfers as ongoing processes of intervention in a complex system of social relations. Cash transfer interventions operate through and affect this system at each stage: awareness?raising, targeting, payment, case management and monitoring and evaluation. We conclude that the impact of cash transfers on social relations is large and often negative. We argue that this is intrinsically important for wellbeing, but can also have negative consequences for material aspects of wellbeing, such as livelihoods

Learning from Communities: The Local Dynamics of Formal and Informal Volunteering in Korogocho, Kenya

Taking the Korogocho community as its starting point, this article explores the respective roles, dynamics and relationship between formal and informal volunteering. Following an overview of the research's participatory systemic action research (SAR) methodology, the article outlines how the widespread use of stipends and allowances by external development organisations has blurred the distinction between formal volunteerism and low?paid work – something that disincentivises volunteering through local organisations who lack the resources to pay allowances. It examines informal volunteering, such as mutual aid and self?help groups, and highlights how they add significant value when they emerge in response to a directly experienced community need. Finally, it discusses the risks and opportunities associated with formal and informal volunteering. Issues include how volunteering can be used in complementary ways to address community needs, the scales at which they are most effective, and their potential in promoting greater inclusion and more equitable gender roles

A Typology of Child Sponsorship Activity

Framing the debate over child sponsorship in terms of legitimacy and changing perceptions of credible international humanitarian interventions, this chapter takes exception to the tendency of child sponsorship critics to assume that sponsorship funded activity is much the same everywhere and similar today when compared to sponsorship practice in the past. Mindful of ongoing critique of child sponsorship, this chapter seeks to position those international non-governmental organisations that utilise child sponsorship to fund interventions, in a landscape of contested ideas. It argues that informed critique of child sponsorship is best achieved through a typology of funded interventions. Four key types of sponsorship funded activity are identified as emerging over time, some of which are currently deemed to be less legitimate in terms of poverty reduction and are best seen as welfare measures aimed at individual children rather than community development or advocacy activities

Confucian ecumene The role of Confucianism as a governing ideology in Japanese Formosa from 1895 to 1937

Economic imperialism remains the dominant paradigm in Political Economy when examining modern empires. The Core-Periphery relationships of World Systems Theory based around exploitation of labor and resources, or capitalist cycles of accumulation is a powerful theoretical tool, and a useful lens through which to view European colonialism. However, the expansion of the Japanese empire into Taiwan did not follow the same pattern of development and exploitation as its European counterparts, and had dramatically different outcomes for the former colonized state. This project compares standard economic analysis of Japanese colonialism with a modified version of Michael Mann s model of social power allowing for ideological drivers of expansion that incorporates the work of John K Fairbank on the Chinese World Order. Specifically attempting to identify the role of Confucianism as a governing ideology in Japanese imperial expansion from 1895 (the treaty of Shimonoseki) to 1937 (the beginning of Japanese militarism)

Documentation of the one man show of jewelry

Includes photographs of exhibition pieces.The following work is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree at Northern Illinois University. The work was produced between November, 1972, and October, 1975. It was presented in exhibition from November 23, 1975 through November 29, 1975, in the Graduate Gallery of the Visual Arts Building, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.M.A. (Master of Arts