Ideational and institutional drivers of social protection in Tanzania

In the early 2000s, there was low elite commitment to social protection in Tanzania. Yet, in 2012, the government officially launched a countrywide social safety net programme, and a year later it announced the introduction of an old age pension. In this article, I explore the reasons for this recent elite commitment to social protection. The analysis takes an ideational approach, and it is shown how the promotion of social protection has been driven by international and domestic institutions with the resources, expertise, and authority to present policy solutions fitting the elite's general ideas about Tanzania's development challenges and possible responses thereto. Thus, ideas play an important role in policy development. Attention to the ideas of ruling elites also reveals cases where ideas lose prominence as an explanatory factor. The introduction of the pension fits poorly with dominant views on development and poverty reduction in Tanzania and is more likely to have been influenced by political interests

The development of social protection policies in Tanzania, 2000-2015

Tanzania has recently scaled up a piloted conditional cash transfer programme to target the extreme poor across the country. In addition, there has been moves to finalise a national social protection framework and the possibility of introducing an old age pension has been announced. This paper focuses on these three main social protection developments in Tanzania and looks into the role of different bureaucracies and their funding partners in shaping social protection policies. The Tanzanian case illustrates how external agencies influence the development of social protection strategies in low-income countries. Although policy ownership lies with domestic institutions, their ability to develop policies, implement these and document their success is largely depended on the support they get from external agencies. By funding pilot projects and supporting evidence-based publications and promotional events, external actors can play a determining role in promoting specific social protection policy designs. Without strong institutional ownership with the backing of resourceful partners, proposed policies are less likely to get sufficient political support

From consensus to contention: Changing revenue and policy dynamics in Uganda

This paper examines how the changing relationships between the Ugandan government, on the one side, and citizens and donors, on the other, affect public policy priorities. The authors hypothesize that citizens can affect government´s policy priority both as voters, as represented by civil society organizations and as tax payers, whereas the influence of donors is largely driven by the extent to which the government is reliant on aid. The analysis shows how the relationships have shifted from being consensual between the government, the citizens and donors on the desirability of poverty eradication strategies and social spending, to relationships for which consensus is waning and the government is moving (back) to policies of infrastructural development and structural transformation of the economy. In the former period, donors provided the majority of funding and, with the introduction of elections, citizens´ preferences became an important political consideration. In the latter period, donors have lost some of their erstwhile funding dominance, the government is building new partnerships, and social sector expansion has lost much of its electoral appeal

Sydafrika i BRIKS: Den lille efternøler

Marianne S. Ulriksen om Sydafrika som det nyeste medlem af BRIKS.&nbsp

The history of resource mobilization and social spending in Uganda

This paper is the first of a series of papers exploring the political and institutional contexts of resource mobilization and social spending for social development in Uganda. We provide the historical context of, and trends in, resource mobilization (domestic and external revenue) and social spending in post-independence Uganda. After years of civil war, mismanagement and general decline, Uganda turned a page in 1986 when NRM (National Resistance Movement) came to power. During the 1990s and early 2000s, Uganda was a prototypical donor-dependent country with aid constituting more than half of government revenue. During this period, the government, in partnership with donors, focused spending on targeted pro-poor development programmes, including primary education and basic health care. While priority of these social sectors has led to some improvements in social development outcomes, the quality of education and health care is still disappointing and social protection programmes remain neglected. Moreover, domestic resource mobilization has not improved considerably which points to issues of weak institutional capacity as well as the contested nature of taxation. Trends in recent years show an increasingly strained relationship between the government and its traditional donors, piecemeal and ad hoc tax reforms, promise of increasing revenue from oil, and a move in policy priorities away from human capital development to spending on infrastructure and expansion of productive sectors

Poverty and Inequality in Middle Income Countries: Policy Achievements, Political Obstacles

This collection offers a timely reassessment of viable ways of addressing poverty across the globe today. The profile of global poverty has changed dramatically over the past decade, and around three-quarters of the poor now live in middle income countries, making inequality a major issue. This requires us to fundamentally rethink anti-poverty strategies and policies, as many aspects of the established framework for poverty reduction are no longer effective. Featuring contributions from Latin America, Africa and Asia, this much-needed collection answers some of the key questions arising as development policy confronts the challenges of poverty and inequality on the global, national and local scale in both urban and rural contexts. Providing poverty researchers and practitioners with valuable new tools to address new forms of poverty in the right way, Poverty and Inequality in Middle Income Countries shows how a radical switch from aid to redistribution-based social policies is needed to combat new forms of global poverty.Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP) at the University of BergenpublishedVersio

Social policy development and global financial crisis in the open economies of Botswana and Mauritius

The manner in which open economies in a globalized world shape social policy development is highly disputed, as is the impact of the current financial crisis on social policy. One argument is that globalization and economic austerity force social policy dismantling. Alternatively, it is proposed that open economies – facing greater volatility, especially during crisis – push for greater social protection. Using the examples of Botswana and Mauritius, two open middle-income countries, this article suggests that, in fact, both arguments may be correct. The impact of globalization and economic crisis depends on the character of the welfare system already in place and the organized interests underpinning it. In Botswana a main social policy thrust is to increase efficiency in spending, whereas issues of job security and compensation are more prevalent in Mauritius. The findings imply that divergence across welfare systems persists and that, even in crisis, countries often use tried social policy solutions

Political and institutional drivers of social security policy in South Africa

This paper provides an analysis of political and institutional drivers that shape social policy in South Africa with a specific focus on social security. As elsewhere in the Global South, South Africa has a quite extensive social assistance framework, whereas social insurance is limited and inadequate. This is contrary to the experiences of the Global North, where social insurance has been the primary social security mechanism with social assistance playing a more marginal role. In order to explore the contrasting developments within social security policy, we focus our analysis on two case studies with varying policy outcomes: 1) the social cash transfer system, which is well established; and 2) the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, a recent policy, which has suffered several delays. Building on the power resource and historical institutionalism approaches, we explore how different actors seek to assert their policy preferences, and how current institutional arrangements shape actors' interests and their ability to influence policy reforms. The two cases reveal interesting differences that can explain the success of social cash transfer expansion and the sluggish progress (to date) to introduce national health insurance. While the latter has strong vested interests against reform, even though there is consensus on the need for a national health insurance scheme, the former has had no strong opponents and subsequent incremental expansions have benefited from well-established institutional arrangements, positive research evidence and civil society advocacy and litigation. Moreover, the introduction of a health insurance scheme is relatively more complex (politically, institutionally and technically), compared to expanding an already existing social cash transfer programme. In our analysis, we also explore the different ideational narratives related to the two types of policies. Social cash transfers have legitimacy as a policy addressing the needs of the most vulnerable, which are defined to be the elderly, young and people living with disabilities, but not able-bodied adults. In the case of health insurance, ideological narratives are pitted against each other: the concept of health as a common good against health as a commodity, and market-oriented strategies for delivery against state-centric approaches.Prepared for the UNRISD project New Directions in Social Policy: Alternatives from and for the Global Sout