Child-centred social protection 15 July 2009 Michael Samson UNICEF/ IDS Course on Social Protection

Overview  Why child-centred? –UNICEF –the socio-economic returns  The instruments –Fee waivers for services –Cash transfers  Conditionality?  Expanding the concept of child-centred social protection

What does social protection do?  Focus area 1. Young child survival and development: poverty reduction, nutrition, health  Focus area 2. Basic education and gender equality: school attendance, particularly for girls  Focus area 3. HIV/AIDS and children: support for caregivers and AIDS-affected households  Focus area 4. Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse: reduced child labour  Focus area 5. Policy advocacy and partnerships for children’s rights

Biological transmission mechanisms of social protection

High rates of return on social transfers result from their tendency in many countries to provide pre-school children with vital resources Heckman & Carneiro (2003) and Handa (2007)

Vocabulary scores by SES quartiles in 36 to 72 month old children Ecuador age (months) Source: Paxson and Schady (2005) reported in Handa (2007)

South Africa KIDS Panel: Prior malnutrition affects school enrolment Source: Handa (2007) Height-for-age Z-scores in % enrolment 95% enrolment

Social services  Many child-centred social protection interventions will be covered next week  But how do cash transfers relate to social service delivery?  Cash transfers + fees for most vital services (health, education, water) = inefficiency

School fee abolition is affordable and has significant impacts on the poor  On average primary school fees account for no more than 5% of the total cost per child – this cost is widely affordable for governments.  School attendance of the poor is very sensitive to even low fees. The benefit to waiving fees outweighs the cost.

Evidence from Africa demonstrates a substantial impact on primary school enrolment from abolishing school fees (SOURCE: UNESCO, UKWP2006)

Recent evidence from Kenya’s Joint Poverty Assessment corroborates this Age

Abolishing school fees only one part of social protection strategy  Getting children admitted is not the only challenge to reaching Universal Primary Education (UPE).  Other key challenges to achieving UPE include: –Enrolling the last 10-15% of children, largely in rural areas. This challenge is compounded by the rapid increase in HIV/AIDS orphans. –Reducing the drop-out rate –Improving learning outcomes  These challenges require that school fee abolition is accompanied by other social protection measures such as cash transfers and school feeding programmes for marginalised children

Impact of social cash transfers Empowerment Upliftment Health, education Access to markets (nutrition)

Most cash transfers buy predominantly food SOURCE: IFPRI

…and other health outcomes SOURCE: IFPRI

…and significant educational impacts (particularly in cases where initial enrolment is low) SOURCE: IFPRI, EPRI, UNICEF

Group exercise (for this afternoon)  In groups, each person discusses for a country they select: –First, do we have the information necessary to answer these questions? If not, what kind of information would be required to answer each question? –Second, what kind of child-centred social protection programme do we want to implement? –Should it be targeted? If so, how? –Should it be “conditional”? If so, on what and how? –How does the programme fit into the larger social protection picture? What complementary programmes are necessary?

How do you design a child-centred social transfer programme? Programme selection involves answering key questions: Who benefits? Transfer size? Targeting? ?

What kind of programme?  Unconditional programme? –Social pension? South Africa model? Lesotho model? –Household grant? Kalomo? Mchinji?  Conditional cash transfers? –Unconditional programme + conditionality –Mexico or Brazil? Kenya, Pakistan or Zambia?  Public works programme?  Micro-finance, school feeding, inputs?

Identification of the beneficiary  We often define social transfer programmes in terms of the beneficiary –social pension (older people) –child benefit (children) –food subsidy (hungry people) –geographically located people (poverty and vote mapping)  The political and policy context for beneficiary identification  The role of the poverty profile  Institutional factors and existing programmes

Households with older people and children are on average poorer than other household types in most African countries SOURCE: Kakwani and Subbarao (2005) Older people & children Only older people No older people

Tanzania: the potential impact of a social pension and a child benefit SOURCE: ILO

Secondary Beneficiaries of Social Pension Income in Namibia SOURCE: Devereux (2007)

Public works programmes  Public works programmes are conditional cash transfers — where the conditionality is work

Key considerations  High wages almost always make it difficult to target the poor, but low wages don’t necessarily make it easier –… and low wages erode the social protection  To transfer one dollar to a household costs between $2.50 and $5.00  The best programmes combine four elements: –High labour intensity –Substantial pro-poor value-added from the project –Effective targeting of poor households –Workers employed in a way that does not erode their ability to fulfill their other obligations

Source: Kathy Lindert (2005) Conditional cash transfers: where are they found?

Social transfer programmes can include any of five possible elements Element: Unconditional social transfers Conditional cash transfers Income (poverty reduction)Yes Improved service deliveryMaybe Developmental awarenessMaybe MonitoringMaybe PenaltiesNoYes

Are there backlogs in delivering social services? conditionalUNconditional YES NO Does government have strong administrative capacity? Do the poor face bottlenecks in accessing social services? Is the unemployment rate relatively high or low? What factors affect the choice of conditional versus unconditional transfers? NO YES NO LOW YES HIGH

Are conditionalities necessary?  Evidence  Philosophical underpinnings  Risks –compromise the poverty reduction objective –deprive the poor of freedom to choose appropriate services — and to freely make decisions to improve household welfare –can be expensive, inflexible, and inefficient — in the worst of cases, screen out the poorest

Conclusions  Social protection must be child-centred  A variety of appropriate instruments are essential—rarely does one intervention work optimally on its own  Cash transfers are a historically under-utilised instrument that can promote developmental outcomes  A broad conception of child-centred social protection can help to break the chains of the inter-generational transmission of poverty