Browsing by Author "Allan, Claire"

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    Is South Africa's social protection system addressing the causes or the symptoms of poverty? : the case of the Child Support Grant
    (2010) Allan, Claire; Townsend, Stephen S
    The South African Government's anti-poverty strategy has been largely dominated by unconditional cash transfers. A growing body of literature examines the impacts of these transfers on a range of socio-economic outcomes; however there is little discussion of why such impacts are important. Without an explicit conceptual framework within which to examine these effects, evaluating their likely long term poverty impacts remains problematic. The focus of this research is to distil the current thinking on poverty and social protection to establish an appropriate theoretical framework within which to appraise anti-poverty measures. 'An Assets-Augmented' Capabilities Framework is proposed with a focus on asset-building as the primary means of poverty reduction. Focusing on the Child Support Grant (CSG), empirical analysis is then applied to examine whether the underlying causes of poverty are being addressed. Using the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Wave 1 Dataset, the effects of the CSG on households' expenditure patterns are examined to assess the extent to which CSG-recipients invest in asset-building. A propensity score matching method is employed to construct an appropriate counterfactual. Households receiving the CSG are not found to exhibit significantly different expenditure patterns compared to a control group and cannot therefore be argued to invest differently in assets. This key finding provides evidence that the CSG primarily addresses the symptoms of poverty and cannot be expected to generate sustainable poverty reduction. A linking approach is thus proposed to combine the cash transfer element of the grant with more explicitly promotional measures in order to seek greater asset effects. A key recommendation is to ensure that the CSG acts as a gateway to other complementary services and benefits in order to increase the value of the grant with relatively little additional effort or cost.
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    Is the backlash against AIDS-specific funding justified? An examination of the health systems impacts of AIDS spending and a critical review of proposed alternative funding methods
    (2010) Allan, Claire
    This paper responds to the recent backlash against AIDS-specific funding by setting out the key claims and examining the evidence to determine which criticisms are justified, and which are not. The backlash against international funding for AIDS has taken a number of forms, with some suggesting that the extent of the problem (the HIV epidemic) has been exaggerated and others arguing that UNAIDS programme efforts have been misdirected. A key claim however, is that AIDS-related funding has undermined health systems in developing countries. A primary contributor to the backlash has been Roger England, who asserts that the international AIDS response has produced “the biggest vertical programme in history” and that this funding “could be more effective if used to strengthen public health” (England, 2007: 344). The reasoning behind this argument has been that the sheer scale of international funding for AIDS has not only been unwarranted, but that it has damaged health systems in developing countries by diverting resources from other areas of the health sector (see argument summarised in Nattrass and Gonsalves (2009: 1)). Ultimately the recommendation is that AIDS-specific funding must be curtailed and the resources instead channelled through sector-wide general budget arrangements to support health systems more generally and to allow domestic priorities to direct spending decisions.