The politics of promoting social cash transfers in Uganda: The potential and pitfalls of “thinking and working politically”

Abstract

Motivation: Social cash transfer programmes (SCTs) have spread rapidly in sub-Saharan Africa during the last decade. However, there is little consensus on how this has happened, particularly in terms of the relative roles of international development agencies and national-level political factors. Uganda is one of several countries to have adopted cash transfers since 2010 and can offer important insights into how this process has unfolded. Purpose: Theoretical advances suggest that transnational policy transfer is most effective when international actors are able to align their proposals with domestic political dynamics. This article examines how the adoption of a "thinking and working politically" approach enabled donors to shape the uptake of SCTs in Uganda. It investigates what happens when a "going with the grain" approach is deployed in a context where domestic political dynamics are moving further away from the progressive forms of politics that proponents of social protection in Africa have often heralded. Approach and methods: The article is based on an in-depth qualitative case study of the promotion of SCTs in Uganda. Over 35 key informant interviews were undertaken with all key stakeholders, particularly between 2014-2016 after the government of Uganda announced a scaling-up of SCTs. The triangulation of these accounts within a rigorous process-tracing methodology enables us to link key turning points in this process to donor strategies and Uganda's changing political settlement. Findings: Donor efforts to promote SCTs in Uganda prospered when a shift was made from a technocratic to a more politically informed approach in the late 2000s. By employing strategies from the new "thinking and working politically" agenda, an alignment was eventually achieved between SCTs and Uganda's shifting political settlement, including the president's increased vulnerability to popular pressures and the commercialization of patron-client politics. However, cash transfers have been adopted primarily as a form of clientelism rather than as a strategy for promoting either significant levels of poverty reduction or an improved social contract. Policy implications: The findings suggest that the "thinking and working politically" agenda carries significant risks when applied in contexts such as Uganda, where the political conditions for development are deteriorating. O2 |HICKEY and BUKEnYa | INTRODUCTIONIn August 2013, the president of Uganda issued a letter to the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) that called for an extension of the Senior Citizens Grant (SCG) project to a 15th district. This was in addition to the 14 districts in which it had been piloted since 2010. The new district was Yumbe, located in the northern part of the country where the president was keen to consolidate his recent gains at the 2011 election. Yumbe was chosen because, earlier in 2013, a delegation of local leaders from the district had directly lobbied the president for their district to be included. The same letter also re...

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“…Due in part to the lack of financial support, 85% remain engaged in informal subsistence farming, and/or depend on communal and intergenerational relations for both financial and social support [63]. Although Uganda is piloting the Senior Citizens Grants under the Irish Aid Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) Scheme, income support grants have yet to be equitably rolled out across the country [64]. Uganda has the highest youth unemployment rate in SSA, which is driving the high rates of rural-urban migration of younger populations and consequently fracturing intergenerational social systems [17].…”

Competitive clientelism, donors and the politics of social protection uptake in Ghana

“…In keeping with the expectation of short time horizons in competitive clientelist political settlements, reforms have focused largely on expansion at the expense of qualitative improvements, evidenced in the persistently low value of the grant, the lack of complementary services for most beneficiaries, and the persistent weaknesses in social accountability mechanisms that undermine beneficiaries’ ability to hold service providers accountable. That all these problems are the results of the visibility bias and short-termism that are characteristic of competitive clientelism would further seem to suggest that the LEAP has thus far been implemented primarily as a form of clientelism rather than as a strategy for promoting either significant levels of poverty reduction or an improved social contract, as has been the case in other cash transfer programmes in the region (Hickey and Bukenya, 2020).…”

“…Existing work on the spread of cash transfers in Africa has tended to either downplay the role of national-level political factors by emphasising the influence of donors or of focusing only on formal aspects of politics, such as democracy and good governance (Hickey and Bukenya, 2020). For example, Awortwi and Aiyede (2017) argue that most social protection programmes in Africa are donor-driven, and that governments have increasingly embraced cash transfers because of donor commitment to funding them.…”

Mainstreaming climate adaptation into social protection: The issues yet to be addressed

“…Therefore, political leaders are incentivized to formulate short‐term, mostly post‐disaster relief‐oriented programmes, to make their activities visible, rather than building long‐term resilience towards climate change (Abdulai, 2021; Haug & Wold, 2017; Tanner et al, 2019). There is a lack of political ownership for building a broader and coherent poverty reduction agenda in many developing countries, which contradicts the ‘ownership’ principle of the Paris Declaration (Hickey & Bukenya, 2020). Recent studies suggest that the influence of external actors contributes to the proliferation of national SP policies and programmes in the countries of the global South.…”

“…Recent studies suggest that the influence of external actors contributes to the proliferation of national SP policies and programmes in the countries of the global South. For example, donor dominance was prevalent in the development and establishment of SP policies and programmes in Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe (Abdulai, 2021; Devereux & Kapingidza, 2020; Hickey & Bukenya, 2020; Pruce & Hickey, 2017). Transnational actors use both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ strategies to provide financial assistance and aid conditionalities to persuade national governments to institutionalize SP strategies (Devereux & Kapingidza, 2020).…”