The Social Cash Transfer Programme of Malawi

Ángeles, Gustavo; Abdoulayi, Sara; Barrington, Clare; Handa, Sudhanshu; Kainja, Esmie Tamanda Vilili; Mvula, Peter; Mwamlima, H.; Tsoka, Maxton; Spadafora, Tayllor

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198769446.003.0012

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…The transfers for the SCTP in 27 of its 28 districts are funded by a group of donors while the Government of Malawi (GoM) funds the transfers in one district (UNICEF, 2021)—though funding there is erratic, and transfers are not made reliably as to the programme's schedule. The SCTP started as a pilot in 2006 with the aim of alleviating ‘poverty, hunger, and starvation in the targeted households, as well as improving health, nutrition, and education conditions of the children living in those households’ (Angeles et al, 2016) and was strongly influenced by Zambia's SCT which involved the same key stakeholders and consultants (Pruce & Hickey, 2020). The aim was to reach households that were both ultra‐poor and labour constrained (such as elderly caring for children), approximately 10% of the population (Schubert, 2009)—though attempting to define households in the context of Malawi's (and Lesotho's) SCTs is problematic (Ansell et al, 2019).…”

Section: Data and Studied Cash Transfersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reshaping state–citizen relationships through donor‐designed targeting systems in Lesotho and Malawi

Hemsteede

2023

Soc Policy Adm

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Social and humanitarian cash transfers in sub‐Saharan Africa are increasingly used to support a wide range of vulnerable populations with long‐term support or immediate relief. Designing and implementing cash transfers typically involves a range of transnational actors and government stakeholders who continuously exert power which in turn affects state–citizen relations. The data informing this article come from 109 key informant interviews with (inter)national‐level stakeholders involved in three social cash transfers and two humanitarian cash transfers in Lesotho and Malawi. This article argues that donor‐designed targeting approaches in Lesotho and Malawi create space for new state–citizen relations, but that these are relatively shallow and reconfigured once technical capacity allows for targeting approaches that rely less on communities. It contributes to the literature on the role of transnational actors in social protection by showing that their role is significant when it comes to creating new redistributive relations, even if transnational actors are unable to convince host governments to take full fiscal responsibility for their initiatives due to differing views on who deserves what kind of support.

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Section: Data and Studied Cash Transfersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reshaping state–citizen relationships through donor‐designed targeting systems in Lesotho and Malawi

Hemsteede

2023

Soc Policy Adm

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“…The SCTP was then expanded from a pilot in seven districts, to a national programme in 18 of the country's 28 districts. The coverage of beneficiaries increased from 25,000 households in 2012 to 68,550 at the end of 2014 (Angeles et al, 2016). The primary funders were the German government through the German Development Bank (KfW), the European Union, Irish Aid, and the World Bank.…”

Section: The Expansion Of Social Cash Transfers Under President Joyce...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Civil servants in the Economic Planning Department of the Ministry of Finance drafted a social support policy that was presented to the Cabinet in 2008. The draft policy—together with results of impact evaluations—was not debated in the Cabinet because social protection was not high on the agenda (Angeles et al, 2016). For the next four years, the Cabinet did not act on the draft policy or evaluation results because social protection did not align with Mutharika's ideas, nor did it address the DPP's political interests.…”

Section: The Development Of Social Protection In Malawi: 2006–2012mentioning

confidence: 99%

International donors, domestic politics, and the expansion of social cash transfers in Malawi

Siachiwena

2022

Development Policy Review

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Motivation: International donors piloted social cash transfers in Africa in the 2000s. Successful pilots need to be expanded, to be nationally owned, and to be funded by regular budgets. How this may be done depends on domestic politics, which vary by country. Donors need to engage with local politics if they wish their pilots to be institutionalized. Malawi is one such case, where a change of president opened a window for policy reforms. Purpose: Why were donors, over six years, unable to persuade Bingu wa Mutharika's government of Malawi to adopt social cash transfers; but succeeded with Joyce Banda's administration within two months of her being in office? Methods and approach: I adopt John Kingdon's multiple streams framework, originally developed in 1984 to explain how agenda are set in the USA. He observed separate streams of problems, potential policy responses, and politics which may converge at critical juncturespolicy windows-when new policies may be adopted. I interviewed 25 policy-makers in Malawi, including political leaders, donor staff, government civil servants, and civil society officers to trace policy-making for social cash transfers. Findings: Malawi can be seen to have a super-presidential system, in which presidents and their closest allies overwhelmingly set the agenda, aligned to their ideological views and political interests. When presidents change, a policy window opens. Mutharika prioritized increasing the maize harvest and stabilizing the economy. The input subsidies used to achieve the former, he saw as "home-grown" solutions, were preferred to donor orthodoxies. Social protection was for him another donor orthodoxy. It did not align with his beliefs and conflicted with his interests in food security. When Mutharika died suddenly in 2012, Vice-President Banda took over. Her experience was different to that of her predecessor: she had worked with civil society, was acutely aware of poverty, and had good relations with external non-governmental organizations and donors. She saw priorities in rising vulnerability and exclusion, she favoured safety nets, and was anxious to gain support for her administration. Social protection came rapidly into favour, pilots were expanded into a national programme. Policy implications: Political leaders support programmes that benefit both development and political survival. Understanding how a brief

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“…In response to this context and the need for innovative economic development and health promotion strategies, in 2006, the government of Malawi launched the Social Cash Transfer Program (SCTP; Angeles et al, 2016). The SCTP is an unconditional cash transfer program that targets ultra-poor and labor-constrained households and provides small amounts of cash every 2 months.…”

Section: Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the cash is unconditional, meaning that beneficiaries are not required to use the money in a specific way, nor is provision of the cash contingent on any specific behaviors, the main goals of the program are poverty alleviation, improved food security, and increased school enrolment. Since its inception, research and evaluation have been critical to informing iterative design of the policies and implementation processes of the SCTP (Angeles et al, 2016). In the most recent impact evaluation of the Malawi SCTP conducted in 2015, compared with nonbeneficiary households, beneficiary households had significant improvements in food security, consumption, and school enrolment and retention with more mixed and less compelling findings in the areas of health and nutrition outcomes (Abdoulayi et al, 2016).…”

Section: Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Photo-Elicitation Methods to Understand Resilience Among Ultra-Poor Youth and Their Caregivers in Malawi

Barrington

Villa-Torres

Abdoulayi³

et al. 2017

Health Educ Behav

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Unconditional cash transfer programs are a form of structural intervention to address poverty, a "fundamental cause" of disease. Such programs increasingly aim to build resilience to sustain improved outcomes and provide a solid foundation for longer term transformations. As such, there is a need to understand what resilience means in specific contexts. The goal of this formative study was to explore local experiences of resilience and vulnerability among 11 youth-caregiver dyads ( n = 22) who were beneficiaries of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Program in Balaka district. We used a photo-elicitation approach informed by the participatory, visual methodology photovoice to guide the study and conducted an iterative content analysis using thematic coding of transcripts and photos. Participants took pictures of their daily struggles and shocks and participated in audio-recorded discussions to reflect on the photos using an adapted version of the SHOWeD method. We found that participants characterized resilience as a tireless process of using all available individual, family, and community resources at all times in pursuit of survival and well-being. In the context of daily struggles, resilience was an essential part of survival. Shocks, mostly health-related, were depicted through staged images candidly highlighting individual and environmental vulnerabilities. Community support was an essential component of resilience for both daily struggles and shocks. Using photo-elicitation methods facilitated an intergenerational, community-driven reflection on the meaning of resilience and the multilevel determinants of health in a context of extreme poverty. Findings can inform the design of resilience-focused cash transfer programs to improve health equity.

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The Social Cash Transfer Programme of Malawi

Cited by 17 publications

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Reshaping state–citizen relationships through donor‐designed targeting systems in Lesotho and Malawi

Reshaping state–citizen relationships through donor‐designed targeting systems in Lesotho and Malawi

International donors, domestic politics, and the expansion of social cash transfers in Malawi

Using Photo-Elicitation Methods to Understand Resilience Among Ultra-Poor Youth and Their Caregivers in Malawi

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