Browsing by Author "Chinyoka, Isaac"

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    How and why do states provide for children? Comparing social grants for families with children in Southern Africa
    (2018) Chinyoka, Isaac; Seekings Jeremy F; Moore, Elena
    This thesis explores variation in public policy with a focus on the provision of social grants (social cash transfers) for families with children. The thesis investigates how and why three middle-income countries (South Africa, Namibia and Botswana) and a low-income country (Zimbabwe) in Southern Africa provide for children in different ways. In-depth interviews and desktop research established that ‘child welfare regimes’ (CWRs) (a combination of programmes affecting the welfare of children, primarily cash transfers, feeding programmes, health and education fee waivers) are similar in providing some form of social grants, directly and/or indirectly to children or families with children. But there are significant variations between the CWRs. The CWRs primarily vary across two dimensions: first, the coverage of programmes; and secondly, their targeting, specifically whether they are targeted on poverty or on perceived ‘family breakdown’. I present a taxonomy of CWRs with four distinct types: a pro-poor (poverty-targeted) CWR (as in South Africa), a familialist CWR (targeted on ‘broken’ families) (as in Botswana), a mixed (pro-poor-familial targeted) CWR (as in Namibia) and an agrarian (family-targeted) one (as in Zimbabwe). A pro-poor CWR is distinguished by high coverage and generous transfers. A familial CWR provides medium coverage with overall generosity but with parsimonious cash benefits. A mixed CWR has low coverage and modest generosity while an agrarian CWR has low coverage and ungenerous benefits. This taxonomy emphasises variation in targeting form, an important but underestimated dimension in identifying and explaining CWRs particularly in Southern Africa. In explaining the variation, the factors that were especially important include colonial antecedents, need or structural factors (particularly AIDSrelated health shocks, demographic changes and family breakdown), international influence by international organisations, particularly UNICEF, the level of democracy but all these factors and the choice for a CWR reflect domestic politics (party politics and civil society organisations). These findings extend the Power Resource Theory beyond developed countries but also reveal new influential factors, within the theory, that have been overlooked but significant in explaining variation between CWRs.
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    Social policy reform under the Government of National Unity in Zimbabwe, 2009-13
    (2016-04) Chinyoka, Isaac; Seekings, Jeremy
    The formation of a Government of National Unity (GNU) in Zimbabwe in 2009 has generally been assessed as a façade, with ZANU-PF retaining real power to serve its own ends. Whilst this may have been true of the key challenges facing Zimbabwe – ensuring democratic political competition and the rule of law, and (less clearly) economic stabilisation and growth – it was not true in all areas of public policy. With respect to social protection, the partial change of government resulted in significant reform. In the mid-2000s, social protection in Zimbabwe was for the most part limited to donor-funded and distributed emergency food aid. Under the GNU, ministers from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) presided over more programmatic responses involving the state and donors working together, including on the country’s first sustained experiments with cash transfers as well as innovative food aid programmes. The shift in policy was not due so much to clear policy preferences on the part of the MDC as to the transformed relations between MDC-controlled government ministries and donors and international agencies. The MDC opened the policy reform door to donors and agencies that were enthusiastic about cash transfer and reformed food aid programmes. The shift to cash transfers was also made possible by dollarisation and market liberalisation. Whereas Zimbabwe had been very anomalous in terms of its pro-poor policies in 2009, by 2013 its policies were far closer to those of its neighbours, although they remained constrained by poor public finances.