Global Development Institute Lecture Series
The Global Development Institute Lecture Series brings together scholars involved in cutting edge research on international development. It aims to facilitate dialogue and discussion, providing a space for leading development thinkers to share their latest research ideas.
The Lecture Series will begin on Wednesday, 12th October with GDI Executive Director David Hulme discussing his latest book ‘Should Rich Nations Help the Poor?’
Lectures will be held in Theatre B, Roscoe Building from 5.00 – 6.30pm BST.
- 12 October: Should Rich Nations Help the Poor? Professor David Hulme, Global Development Institute, The University of Manchester. Watch the lecture here.
- 26 October: The UK’s Post-Brexit Trade Policy: What about development? Professor Alan Winters, The Department for International Development, The University of Sussex. Watch the lecture here.
- 9 November: Capitalism and Conservation in the Age of Security: The Vitalization of the State Professor Elizabeth Lunstrum, York University. Watch the lecture here.
- 23 November: The Magic Number: 1.5°C or 2°C Limit on Warming. But, what does this actually mean for Least Developed Countries? Dr Saleemul Huq, Director of International Centre for Climate Change & Development and Senior Fellow at International Institute for Environment and Development. Watch the lecture here.
- 7 December: Bangladesh Confronts Climate Change: Keeping Our Heads Above Water Professor David Hulme, Dr Manoj Roy (Lancaster University) and Dr Joseph Hanlon (Open University). Watch the lecture here.
All the lectures will be followed by a Q&A.
The lectures will be livestreamed via Facebook Live. You can submit questions on Twitter using #GDILecture or in the Facebook Live comments section. The lectures will also be available as podcasts after the event. Find out more on the GDI website, Twitter or Facebook page.
Tracking the savings of poor households
Following on from David Hulme’s blog post Do you want to know how poor people really manage their money? Stuart Rutherford, an Honorary Research Fellow at the Global Development Institute, analyses the latest data from his fascinating financial diaries project.
The ongoing Hrishipara Daily Diary project collects data on the daily money flows of 50 low-income households living near a market town in central Bangladesh. Data collection started in May 2015 and we have published an ‘Interim Report’ covering some findings from the period up to the end of March 2016. In this blog we use more recent data to look at poor households’ savings patterns.
How poor are our ‘diarists’?
Using household net income as a measuring stick, we have categorized our 50 ‘diarists’ into four groups. The poorest have incomes which fall below the Bangladesh government’s ‘lower poverty line’ and we refer to them as extreme poor. Fifteen diarists (or about third of all diarists) are in this group. Another 7 diarists fall below the ‘upper poverty line’ and we call them very poor. Twelve more, our moderate poor diarists, have incomes up to double the upper poverty line and the remaining 16 enjoy higher incomes and we describe them as near poor. (The income figures include the value of produce farmed by diarists for their own consumption). The median income is 81 Bangladesh taka a day per person in the household, the Purchasing Power Parity equivalent of fractionally over US$2, not far from the World Bank’s ‘extreme poverty’ benchmark of $1.90.
Savings balances and savings flows
In the Interim Report we wrote about the savings and loan balances that our diarists hold in formal accounts at banks, insurance companies and MFIs (microfinance institutions like Grameen Bank, BRAC and ASA). What we found may surprise some readers. For example, we found that although MFIs were set up originally to lend to ‘the poorest of the poor’, in our sample the very poorest were the least likely to be using MFIs and in general the higher your income the more likely it was that you used MFIs. We also found that poor diarists who did use MFIs tended to use them more for saving than for borrowing. Overall, among all the diarists, savings balances were higher than loan balances. We concluded that it looked as if the MFIs have become the main receptacle for storing the savings deposits of a very large swathe of rural Bangladeshis, from the poor to the near-poor.
This analysis left many questions unanswered. Are diarists saving at other institutions besides banks and MFIs? What are their savings ‘habits’ – little-and-often or in occasional bursts, or seasonal? – and do these habits vary according to income level, or occupation, or some other characteristic? Who most likes to save? – we know that richer people tend to have bigger savings balances, but are they bigger relative to their income? And why do our diarists save?
Many of these questions are best researched by looking at the flows of income, expenditure, saving and borrowing, rather than looking at totals or balances. A strength of the financial diary methodology is that it reveals these flows in great detail and sets them in the context of the household’s economic, financial, social and even emotional life.
Going with the flow
To look more closely at savings flows, we take a sample of 44 of our diarists for whom we have complete transaction data for the six months from March to August 2016 (we have excluded six diarists for various reasons, such as their sending most of their earnings back to villages where we can’t tell how much of it was saved).
Records for these 44 diarists reveal two other popular places to deposit money besides formal banks and MFIs: the less formal local Co-operatives, and the informal village or occupational savings clubs, known in Bangladesh as ‘samities’. As the following graphics show, 40 of these 44 diarists deposited savings into one or more of these four options during the period.
More diarists deposited into MFIs than in to any other destination, but the less formal Co-operatives came a close second, and the total amount deposited into these Co-operatives during the period was greater than any of the other options. Banks attracted only two depositors, and though a quarter of all diarists in the sample saved into informal samities, the amount they saved was small.
Our diary records help to interpret these numbers. Generally speaking, the MFIs accept deposits only once a week, at a fixed time. The Co-operatives, on the other hand, take deposits at much more frequent intervals, and some send a collector each day to their clients’ homes or workplaces. Several of the samities take savings daily, but, being small entities based on the trust formed in a small community, they prefer not to handle large sums of money. All this suggests that being big enough to handle large sums, while at the same time nimble enough to collect deposits frequently, results in the most intensive saving.
Do savings rates vary with income?
The next graphic shows the saving rates (the proportion of total income deposited into the four destinations noted above) for the six-month period 1 March to 31 August 2016, by selected income class (we have omitted the very poor class because the sample size is small).
What stands out is that our extreme poor diarists, despite their income poverty, save about the same proportion of their income as do the much better-off near poor.
Within these categories, though, the behaviour of individuals varies. Our last graphic shows the percentages of total income saved by the 12 extreme poor diarists in this sample. The poorest of all (on the extreme left of the graphic) is an illiterate widow who does odd jobs for market shopkeepers for a living and feeds herself and, for part of the time, her teenage daughter on an income of less than 75 cents (PPP) a day. By avoiding debt, by living extremely modestly, and by being determined, she manages to save 25 cents most days into a Co-operative and in that way saved one fifth of her total income during the period.
Why does she do it? She tells us she isn’t saving for a particular expenditure, but to protect herself from illness, old age and misfortune, and to provide a better life for her daughter – including as a good a marriage as she can arrange for her. Such reasons for savings are the most commonly heard among our poorer diarists.
These brief notes suggest that the propensity to save is common to all levels of poor households, but the rate of savings depends on a mix of factors: the savings opportunities that are available, the way in which savings is collected, and the specific circumstances and personality of the saver. Financial diaries are perhaps the best way to explore these issues in great detail.
Any reader who would like to grapple with the Hrishipara data can get them from the author at write.ser@gmail.com.
Sharing perspectives on labour standards and labour laws in rising powers
Image by: Steve Snograss
Many in Western countries think of emerging economies such as China and India as places with weak labour standards where workers are being exploited. This ignores changes on the ground in many ‘rising powers’ countries, such as China, India, South Africa and Brazil, which have seen systematic reforms in labour laws and codes as well as an emergence of voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) standards over the past decade.
A workshop held in Cambridge at 5-6 September 2016 brought together researchers from two projects under the ‘Rising Powers and Interdependent Futures’ programme with practitioners and experts to discuss these trends. Stimulating discussions over the two days not only drew on diverse perspectives across academic disciplines but also allowed policy-oriented exchange between academia and practice.
To investigate the complex changes in labour regulation and CSR in the rising powers, the two projects combine very different disciplinary and methodological approaches. From a law and economics perspective, researchers on the ‘Law Development and Finance’ project at the University of Cambridge explore trends in public labour regulation based on the Centre for Business Research (CBR) Labour Regulation Index, a unique quantitative dataset that documents labour laws in 117 countries over the period 1970 to 2013. The data first of all shows that labour regulation in rising powers is becoming increasingly strict. Another finding that may be surprising for some is that stronger regulation does not necessarily lead to losses in employment and productivity, but can improve economic performance.
Coinciding with these reforms in public regulation, the project on ‘Labour Standards and Global Production Networks’ at the University of Manchester finds an emergence of voluntary standards and local norms around CSR in China, India, South Africa and Brazil. Researchers from Manchester draw on qualitative methods and case study analysis to understand how these local CSR standards interact with state regulation and with global labour standards set by international organisations and Western multinational companies. Discussions during the workshop highlighted the very different understandings of CSR across rising power countries. They also underlined the need to take into account the different ways in which CSR interacts with public regulation in these countries.
Following from the lively exchange around labour reforms, academic researchers and practitioners arrived at the question: How can we bridge the gap between academia and practice better and more often? One key lesson was that closer academia-policy interaction could result in better ‘co-production’ of research, and in ways that might have greater impact. Discussions revealed, however, some challenges around the current debate on the wider impact of academic research. For instance, often practical impact is difficult to measure for a single researcher or piece of work, but becomes clearer for an entire body of literature that changes thinking and policy-making. Another challenge is that communication channels may not be conducive to academic research informing policy, e.g. if academic papers only draw conclusions for the literature, or if media interviews are cut too short to allow a researcher to communicate a differentiated idea. Some of the ideas for moving forward were to highlight policy conclusions also in academic journals and to foster links between media and academics that have become weaker over the past years.
For more details, please refer to the publications from the two projects:
- output from the Manchester project on the Rising Powers website
- output from the Cambridge project on the Rising Powers website and on the University of Cambridge website
This post first appeared on the Rising Powers blog
What matters most for improving the prospects of low-income and disadvantaged people?
We asked the participants of the DSA conference this question at the GDI stand last week, and gave them four options: politics, institutions, economic growth, or something else?
Although a blind vote might have made the results fairer, the winner is not particularly surprising considering that the conference theme was “Politics in Development”. Institutions had a brief surge on day two of the conference, but politics pulled ahead to win at the end. One of its supporters was GDI’s Executive Director David Hulme:
https://youtu.be/YVTuqVVlCDY
GDI’s PhD researcher Daniele Malerba chose economic growth, but differentiated his answer by low- and middle-income countries.
https://youtu.be/N8Po0ZE1KrY
The “Something Else” answer also had its fair share of support, led by Duncan Green who advocated for ‘social norms’:
https://youtu.be/b0PuYDUUeWc
All of these three factors (and many others) clearly matter, and most are intertwined with each other, but as a thought exercise, what matters most? What do you think?
GDI at #DSA2016 asked: what matters most for improving the prospects of low-income and disadvantaged people?
— Global Dev Institute (@GlobalDevInst) September 23, 2016
Reflections from the DSA: current issues, next goals and policy relevance in poverty research
Daniele Malerba, PhD Researcher, Global Development Institute 
The 2016 DSA conference, themed around politics in development, involved an incredible number of interesting panels (and more than 600 delegates!). I was very pleased to present in the one focusing on “Poverty dynamics: shame, blame and responsibility”, which also had a strong focus on multidimensional poverty. The panel, running almost all day on Tuesday (chaired brilliantly by Keetie Roelen from IDS), was divided into three sessions, each covering a different sub-topic: discourse, measurement and social protection.
I was very pleased to present on this panel for many reasons. One of them is that the conference was held in Oxford, the hometown of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI, developed by OPHI), giving a romantic element to the event – yes, researchers also have feelings… But more important was the relevance of the topics discussed. Rising inequality, especially in high-income countries, is increasing vulnerability to poverty. As the abstracts of the papers are available in the conference program I will not go into the details of the presentations but want to reflect on the main points discussed and what needs to be done next.
Current issues: definitions of poverty, long-term objectives and responsibility
Throughout all the presentations (and in other panels I attended) three extremely linked themes caught my attention as fundamental to the theme of the panel. The first is the definition and measurement of poverty. Do we conceptualize poverty as monetary or as multidimensional? If we consider the latter, what are the dimensions to include? This is not a new issue. But it is of increasing importance now with the widespread use of direct antipoverty policies in developing countries. Some of them (such as conditional cash transfers, CCT, or integrated poverty reduction programmes like the Chile Solidario) focus on the accumulation of human and physical capital. These programs align closer to the multidimensional definition of poverty and have a longer term vision. On the other hand, unconditional cash transfers address poverty more as a lack of income. It is clear that the conceptualisation of poverty drives policies.
This distinction is a preamble for the second point of interest. Decreasing long term (vulnerability to and) poverty does not imply just temporarily filling temporary income gaps alone. There has to also be a focus on transformational and productive aspects which can create benefits and payoffs also in the long run. Examples include increased education, which brings higher labour market outcomes and earnings, or investment in agricultural machinery which leads to higher output – both typically seen as components of CCT or integrated programmes. This does not mean that unconditional cash transfers cannot achieve these goals as well: for example, higher lump sum transfers are associated with more physical capital accumulation. Any poverty alleviating policy should take these long term goals into account. It is worth noting that some of these transformative dimensions (such as learning quality) are difficult to measure or the data is not available. This is the main reason for their exclusion from indicators such as the MPI.
Thirdly, the responsibility cannot be given to a single person or a single actor. If transformative effects of antipoverty policies need to be achieved, all agents need to play a role. If a CCT programme has the effect of increasing school enrolment, but the school infrastructure is poor and the teachers are absent or of poor quality, how can children improve their education? The objective of CCTs and other human development antipoverty policies is human capital accumulation so final outcomes (learning, health status) should be the ones that matter the most, compared to intermediate goals (school enrolment or visits to health clinics). Responsibilities should be then shared among the agents responsible for the supply-side services (such as infrastructure) as well as the recipients.
https://youtu.be/N8Po0ZE1KrY
What comes next: better data, social and geographical poverty traps, and the need for complementary interventions in antipoverty policies
Given these core issues, what can and should be done? Firstly, improve data quality and its collection frequency, to improve poverty estimations and to include additional relevant dimensions (such as test scores or individual learning outcomes).
Secondly, the goals of antipoverty programs need to take into account the geographical and social poverty traps where many poor people are located. This is important not just because the normalisation of poverty is a big danger for many social groups and geographical areas, but also because the concentration of the poorest in disadvantaged clusters entails more structural policies to address vulnerability and poverty. This is important for development as a whole, as we see that the majority of the global poor now live in specific pockets in middle income countries – and not in low income countries. And despite growth and available resources at the national level, they still remain poor and are excluded from the development process.
Finally, antipoverty programs, especially the ones looking to have a transformational effect through, for example, investments in human capital, need to be complemented by supply side programs through coherent policy architecture, such as ensuring that school enrolment is complemented by good quality teaching. A positive example from Brazil comes from “Brasil Sem Miseria”, a programme launched in 2011 which takes a holistic approach to poverty eradication. This programme complements pre-existing direct antipoverty transfers (such as the well-known CCT Bolsa Família) with other policies related to the supply of good infrastructure or labour force policies.
Reflecting on these last two points in particular, I was wondering if we need to push for a second wave of impact evaluations for many social policies. Most of these policies are implemented at a national level and what we usually know is the overall impact, when information and analysis of the local mechanisms might be more insightful.
In fact, an average positive effect of a program could also be the result of high positive impacts in some areas and low, or even negative, ones in other locations. And it is of fundamental policy relevance to understand what drives these different impacts. Following the last Nobel price winner in economics Angus Deaton, should we not move beyond average effects of these policies and look at deeper and important causal mechanisms?
The problem with inequality in developing countries
By Caroline Boyd, Addressing Global Inequalities #ResearchBeacons Campaign Manager
Inequality and climate change: Two new and pressing challenges to global development which, together, form a heady mix for researchers, governments and NGOs striving to address global inequalities.
Professor David Hulme’s recently launched book, ‘Should Rich Nations Help the Poor?” prominently features these two issues. The challenges around the inequality element in particular are further reinforced in a recent Policy Brief by Professor Stephan Klasen – a research collaborator of the Global Development Institute and the University of Manchester’s Chronic Poverty Research Centre with particular expertise in gender, chronic poverty and poverty measurement.
What do we know about the rising inequality in developing countries?
Since the 1980s the rising inequality within developing countries has been a key factor in the increase in social and political instability, making it no surprise that reducing inequality became a new goal within the Sustainable Development Goals.
Stephan Klasen comments that within-country inequality is responsible for the sharply rising share of all global inequality. Through the decomposable inequality measure (seen below) an underlying trend shows that between-country inequality has been falling since the 1970s whilst since 2000 the marked improvement in higher growth rates in many poor African countries also contributed to falling inequality overall. In contrast, in-country inequality has been rising substantially since 1980 and – if estimates for the top 1% were also included – the rise in overall inequality would be even faster.
So what does this mean for the world?
In harmony with the views of Professor Hulme’s book, Stephan Klasen clearly states in his latest policy brief that one of the biggest changes of recent times in terms of inequality is that we now live in a world where it matters nearly as much for your economic fortune if you are born rich or poor within a country as it matters whether you are born in a rich or poor country. This is a situation which means we should rightly be concerned about the rise of within-country inequality and the huge impact this type of inequality is having on lives and on the wider global inequality picture.
“We now live in a world where it matters nearly as much for your economic fortune if you are born rich or poor within a country as it matters whether you are born in a rich or poor country”
– Stephan Klasen
And this is where policymakers come in. These new inequality trends are not related to unchangeable economic forces. They depend to a great extent on the policy choices by governments. This means there is scope and opportunity for more a pro-active inequality reducing agenda. One which Stephan Klasen argues should be developed and led by the countries in question and one which, as David Hulme argues, other richer countries can and should support.
- Read Stephan Klasen’s full PEGNet Policy Brief titled “What to do about rising inequality in developing countries?”
- David Hulme’s book, “Should Rich Nations Help the Poor?”
- Addressing global inequalities – one of our five #ResearchBeacons of excellence
“Mobile Technology for Agricultural and Rural Development in the Global South” Workshop, 20th October, The University of Manchester
The “Mobile Technology for Agricultural and Rural Development in the Global South” Workshop, will be held on 20th October 2016 at The University of Manchester. An initiative of the Centre for Development Informatics (CDI) at the Global Development Institute (GDI), University of Manchester, UK in collaboration with CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International).
The aim of the 20th October 2016 Workshop is to share research and practice on current trends in “mobile technology for agricultural and rural development in the Global South”: specifically to bring together researchers from diverse disciplines and practitioners with experience of implementing mobile applications and agriculture information systems in differing country contexts. We hope the workshop will shape a future research agenda and form the basis for future research and practitioner partnerships, as well as contributing to an edited book publication.
Read the preliminary list of speakers. If you have any questions please contact: richard.duncombe@manchester.ac.uk
GDI at DSA 2016
Next week, many of us from the Global Development Institute will be at the Development Studies Association Conference hosted by the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) at the University of Oxford. Make sure to stop by the GDI stand in the North Schools (Examination Schools) but if you’re panel hopping and want to see as much of GDI as possible, here’s a daily run down of where to find us:
Monday 12 September
14:00-15:00
The politics of leadership and elite interactions in bureaucratic reforms: Why relational leadership matters for sustainable organisational change presented by Kelechi Ekuma in Room 10 (Examination Schools)
Understanding an emerging vulnerable group in Chile: out of poverty but in risk of being in poverty again presented by Amanda Telias in Room 12 (Examination Schools)
Changing the politics of the state towards more inclusive cities: experiences from two cities in India presented by Diana Mitlin in Lecture Room B (Queens College). For more on this topic, see the Global Urban Research Centre website.
Is Partisan Alignment Electorally Rewarding? Evidence from Village Council Elections in India presented by Subhasish Dey and Kunal Sen in Room 15 (Examination Schools)
19:00-19:30
Join founding editors of the series, Andrew Fischer (Institute of Social Studies, The Hague), Giles Mohan (Open University), and GDI’s Uma Kothari, in North Schools (Examination Schools) to celebrate the launch of the OUP-DSA book series on Critical Frontiers of Theory, Research and Practice in International Development Studies
Tuesday 13 September
9:00-10:30
Beyond the ‘new’ new institutionalism: debating the real comparative politics of development panel in Room 14 (Examination Schools) convened by Sam Hickey and Kunal Sen, chaired by David Hulme and joined by discussant James Robinson. This session will explore how politics shapes economic/social development through a focus on the findings of the Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) research centre, including the Going beyond ‘politics matters’: New insights into how politics and power shapes development paper presented by Sam Hickey and Kunal Sen.
Digital politics, institutional logics and development presented by Richard Heeks in East Schools (Examination Schools). To download a PDF of the paper, click here and for even more, visit the Centre for Development Informatics website.
Rising powers and the emergence of the global development era: a geographical perspective presented by Rory Horner in Room 6 (Examination Schools). For more on the Rising Powers and Interdependent Futures, click here to visit the network’s website.
The role and responsibility of foreign aid in recipient political settlements presented by Pablo Yanguas in Room 15 (Examination Schools)
Losing and Remaking Home following Conflict and Displacement presented by Luis Eduardo Perez Murcia in Room 9 (Examination Schools). Click here to view an interactive website that explores this research.
14:00-15:30
Public representations of refugees and the power of a warm welcome presented by Uma Kothari in Summer Common Room (Magdalen College) – for more, watch Uma’s lecture on the question: is water safer than land?
‘The Infiltrator’ versus ‘the Refugee’: exploring new forms of solidarity and their limitations within the Israeli asylum regime and beyond presented by Tanja Müller in Summer Common Room (Magdalen College). For more on this research, visit Tanja’s blog and the project website here.
Facing conflict barriers in the implementation of Colombian inclusive business: a peace-building approach presented by Angelica Fernandez in Room 15 (Examination Schools)
Measuring the role of governance in environmental upgrading: the case of Kenyan horticulture farmers presented by Aarti Krishnan in Room 7 (Examination Schools). Aarti has also blogged about the PhD fieldwork experience.
Towards a Sustainable Resource Governance Regime in Ghana: An Investigation into the Political Dynamics of Institutional Development and Performance presented by Ishmael Ayanoore in Memorial Room (Queens College)
Is there space for bottom-up approaches in education within development policies? presented by Jaime Echavarri in Room 11 (Examination Schools)
16:00-17:30
Are contextual factors responsible for the effects poverty eradication and human development policies? presented by Daniele Malerba in Room 14 (Examination Schools)
How does corporate social responsibility affect national politics? The case of mining in Ghana, Peru and Zambia presented by Tomas Frederiksen in Room 7 (Examination Schools), and for more information, click here.
Wednesday 14 September
9:00-10:30
Global decisions and local realities: the politics and policies of upgrading and their implications in agricultural global production networks presented by Judith Krauss and Aarti Krishnan in Room 15 (Examination Schools). For intersection of chocolate and global production networks, read about Judith’s research here.
11:00-12:30
CSR standards in China: Social upgrading and industrial policy goals in GPNs presented by Corinna Braun-Munzinger in Room 15 (Examination Schools).
14:15-16:15
Plenary panel on Brexit and International Development: What is the UK’s future role? Chaired by David Hulme (DSA President), the panel will also include: Alice Evans (Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Cambridge), Nick Dearden (Director, Global Justice Now), Duncan Green (Senior Strategic Advisor, Oxfam GB) and Simon Maxwell (Past President of DSA and former Director ODI). The session will examine the implications of the UK’s decision to leave the EU andwhat the Development Studies community could do to ensure that Brexit does not weaken the positive contribution that the UK can make to the achievement of development goals in the future (directly and in collaboration with other nations). All participants in this closing session are encouraged to think in advance about:
(i) What will be the major impacts of the UK leaving the EU?
(ii) What can researchers, teachers, policy analysts and activists do to help ensure the UK can contribute to social progress across the world?
Does social protection also make economic sense? The case of Uganda
Daniele Malerba is a PhD researcher at the Global Development Institute
A large share of the population in Uganda is still economically vulnerable, despite a remarkable reduction in poverty in recent decades. The proportion of the population living with incomes below the widely used international poverty line of USD 1.90 a day decreased sharply from nearly 90% at the end on the 1980s to around 33% in 2012 (World Bank, 2016). Nonetheless, a large share of Ugandans still lives on low incomes, and is very vulnerable to falling into poverty. More importantly, this high vulnerability is not matched by adequate access to social security, direct income support, formal pensions or social care services.
In light of this situation, there is scope and a need to use social protection in Uganda to reduce poverty and vulnerability. 
The country took an important first step with the creation of the Expanding Social Protection Program (ESP) that established a national social protection system as a core element in the national planning and budgeting process. The ESP was approved by the Cabinet in 2010 on a pilot basis and initially funded by donors (DFID, Irish Aid and UNICEF) as part of the National Development Plan. Its core objective is to reduce vulnerability and enhance productivity, with the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development responsible for its implementation. The ESP’s flagship program is SAGE – Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment, which consists of two types of social transfers, both delivering a bi-monthly cash transfer of UGX 50,000. The first one is the Senior Citizen Grant (SCG), an old age social pension for people over 65 years. The second program is Vulnerable Family Grant (VFG), a cash transfer targeted to labour constrained and vulnerable households.[1]
The good news is that a recent evaluation of SAGE indicated that the program has had positive effects on household welfare. Beneficiary households reported higher consumption expenditures, particularly with respect to food, which led to a decrease of food insecurity and hunger. Households also used part of the transfers for health and education related expenditures and investments in productive assets (Merttens et al., 2016). Despite increasing political will and positive initial results that echo international evidence for the adoption of social protection programmes, funding remains low, with the current spending in Uganda at only 0.78% of GDP. This reflects different priorities and problems related to limited fiscal space.
What can be done to argue for increasing public spending on social protection? It is important not to rely solely on existing evidence that such spending will reduce vulnerability, but to also demonstrate that non-contributory social protection is more than just an expenditure; governments should also consider it a strategic investment for economic growth and/through human capital development.
Social protection, especially in the form of cash transfers, alleviates household financial constraints and thus increases investments in both human and physical capital and assets. This should in turn mean higher earnings and higher income. Therefore, social protection is more than a line of expenditure: the returns are potentially significant and should be taken into account in the evaluation of these programs, as some research has already done (Mideros et al., 2012). Moreover, these returns are a complementary, but not substitutive, function to the main role of social protection, further enhancing the programme’s ability to reduce poverty and vulnerability.
To address these issues in the context of Uganda, a team of researchers from Makerere University (Kampala), MGSoG/UNU-Merit (Maastricht University), the Global Development Institute (The University of Manchester) and the Expanding Social Protection Programme, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (Kampala) is researching the estimation of these economic (monetary) returns of social protection. This research, funded by NWO-WOTRO, will hopefully shed light on the strategic importance of social protection within the Ugandan economy, as well evaluating the returns of different social protection programmes, economic mobility and effects on the local economy. The team aims to do this by using both primary (national household surveys) and secondary data (data collected through short surveys and in depth interviews).
The research project was officially launched in October 2015 in Kampala, and will end in 2017, resulting in a report and several papers for publication and dissemination. A second visit took place during summer 2016 to present preliminary data and collect additional data. Watch this space for further updates on the project and get in touch if you have any questions.
[1] The VFG program will be discontinued in the future and the SCG will be rolled out in additional districts using a slightly modified targeting mechanism
References
Barrientos, A. (2013). Social assistance in developing countries. Cambridge University Press.
Mideros, A., Gassmann, F., & Mohnen, P. (2016). Estimation of rates of return on social protection: ex ante microsimulation of social transfers in Cambodia. Journal of Development Effectiveness, 8(1), 67-86.
Merttens et al. (2016). Evaluation of The Uganda Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) Programme – Impact after two years of programme operations 2012-2014 Final report. Oxford Policy Management.
World Development Indicators, World Bank
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Looking good and making a fast buck? Why rich countries help the poor.