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	05 April 2008
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This Comment was written by Karen Tibbo, Regional Social Protection Adviser for CARE International¹

The new social protection agenda in Africa is focused on national governments with an emphasis on the design and implementation of new policies and programmes. In fact, social protection in Africa can only be a reality if it is fully directed and implemented by national governments. The role of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) in this work to date has been highly variable, but there is increasing interest to engage. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the issues that are currently being faced by INGOs in their interaction with the new social protection agenda in Africa and to recommend a way forward.

1. Purpose of the paper

The new social protection agenda² in Africa is focused on national governments with an emphasis on the design and implementation of new policies and programmes. In fact, social protection in Africa can only be a reality if it is fully directed and implemented by national governments. The role of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) in this work to date has been highly variable, but there is increasing interest to engage. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the issues that are currently being faced by INGOs in their interaction with the new social protection agenda in Africa and to recommend a way forward.

2. How have INGOs engaged with the new social protection agenda

INGOs have engaged with the new social protection agenda in a variety of ways. There have been different entry points (e.g. hunger safety nets and pension schemes), various approaches (e.g. direct implementation of INGO projects vs. advocacy to shape national level programs) and different partners (working closely with national governments, working primarily with donors, or a combination). Some of this work has been carried out by individual agencies and some of it has been done by coalition. Several examples of existing work are outlined below:

• The African Union and Government of Zambia organised the Livingstone Conference (2006)³ with the support of HelpAge International. The Call for Action provided commitment from 16 African governments to fund long term social protection programmes, working closely with donors. HelpAge is now working with AU on the Livingstone 2 process, which will take place in 2008.



• Various cash transfer pilot schemes addressing chronic poverty are being implemented by CARE, working closely with Government of Zambia. These pilots are testing approaches and providing an evidence base to support national scale up. This means a focus on simple systems that can be adopted by government and that are cost-effective and affordable. The majority of the pilots (5 in total) rely on community-based targeting. Delivery of a pilot 'pension' scheme started in October 2007 to test the effectiveness of categorical targeting, which can be simpler and cheaper. CARE has made significant contributions to national strategy development around social protection, primarily through the national Social Protection Sector Advisory Group (SP-SAG) and its technical working groups.



• There have been a variety of cash transfer pilots to address emergencies e.g. Concern in Malawi, SCF in Swaziland, Oxfam in various countries (e.g. Zambia and Malawi). In contrast to schemes that address chronic poverty, these emergency projects are by definition of limited duration.



• A conceptual framework that advocates for a Universal Social Minimum has been developed by an UK-based INGO coalition called Grow Up Free From Poverty. It aims to shape social policy measures that address risk and vulnerability from the point of view of human rights and social justice. In addition, the group is working to promote awareness of the potential role of social transfers and support dialogue at national and international level. It is urging donors to support the efforts of national governments to invest in national systems, and working with civil society to engage with government.



• Various advocacy papers have been written by SCUK around social protection, building on their programme work. For example, 'A Review of the Impact of Cash Transfer Programmes on Child Nutritional Status and some Implications for Save the Children UK Programmes' and 'Investing in the Future: Save the Children UK Position Paper on the Role of Cash Transfers in Reducing Child Malnutrition'.

These examples demonstrate that INGOs have made an interesting and useful contribution to social protection thinking, policy and practice. However, involvement has been highly variable between agencies and even within agencies. This lack of unity around how INGOs approach social protection means that mixed messages are being provided both globally and to national governments. This is unhelpful as it means efforts are aligned to individual institutional agendas rather than supporting nationally owned processes. This polarisation is not confined to the INGO community; donors and UN also have a range of views and approaches, which is providing conflict at national level. The lack of unity centres mainly around: independent, small-scale pilots vs. supporting national systems; which type of programme to deliver (e.g. OVC programmes, hunger safety nets, old age grants); a rights based vs. a traditional safety net approach⁴ and the degree of rigour around M&E.

The next section will outline some of the issues that are presenting challenges to INGOs in their engagement with this new agenda.

3. The challenges

3.1 Getting up to speed - the new social protection agenda provides challenges for all stakeholders because the issues are relatively complex and the technical aspects are still being worked out. In addition, the debates are being driven by different agencies, often with different institutional mandates and biases. In order for INGOs to be able to engage effectively in an undefined and dynamic playing field, they need to be up to speed on the evidence, the debates, the politics and the players. This is particularly challenging because this type of policy engagement is a new way of working for many INGOs (see below) plus the debates are largely being driven outside of the INGO sector, by donors, academics and the UN. More importantly, this means that governments are outside of the main debates, which begs the question as to who is best placed, and least biased, to provide technical support.

3.2 Influencing national policy - engagement with the social protection agenda means a different way of working for many INGOs. Agencies often have pockets of work that engage with national policy, but the majority of engagement with government takes place at local (district) level, with projects of limited timescale. Influencing and shaping national policy requires a different skill set compared to the delivery of smaller scale projects. For example, it calls for:

• having broad understanding of the policy process, especially the political aspects



• policy analysis (including assessing implementation and impacts of policies)



• strategic thinking around policies that can have impact at scale



• building and nurturing key relationships with government and donors



• building trust



• high level assessment and analysis skills, both to identify needs and to evaluate impact

It also requires a different perspective, such as:

• long term commitment to processes that can take time to yield results



• the flexibility and patience to keep pace with a dynamic process which the INGO has little control over



• being part of the bigger picture rather than having defined organisational lines between roles



• focusing on systems rather than projects

This difference in approach, which requires both different skills and a different perspective, needs to be better understood for INGOs to be able to make effective contributions to the new social protection agenda. Having good technical skills is important but it needs to be combined with policy competency and a longer term commitment to engage with broader processes.

3.3 Facilitating rather than implementing - the jury is still out on what capacity governments have to deliver social protection programmes under the new agenda, but in general, capacity is perceived to be weak. In this context, capacity is often used as a 'catch all' for a range of issues, such as numbers and skills of personnel, available funding, level of motivation and degree of political interference. All these factors, in various combinations, influence the effectiveness of programmes in terms of impact. The causal factors for 'weak capacity' need to better understood, so support can provide value added.

Social protection programmes have been running in most countries, in some form, for many years (e.g. food subsidies in Mozambique, food security packs in Zambia), usually without INGO support. Where programmes are operational in the new social protection agenda, some INGOs are working with government on implementation. Despite delivery of existing programmes, government capacity is perceived to be weak. Moreover, INGOs are used to implementation and naturally adopt this role. The role of INGOs can cover a spectrum of activities, from targeting to full piloting, as well as advocating to government, courting donors and MPs, mobilizing civil society to campaign government. There are two implications of this range of activities. Firstly, the implementing role of INGOs obscures the actual capacity of the government to implement programmes. Secondly, the different roles and responsibilities of the government and the INGO are often unclear.

The challenge for INGOs is in adopting a new role as facilitator. The shift from 'doing' to 'facilitating' means a handover of power and less tangible results. Many, but not all NGOs have already made this transition and it can be uneven within INGOs. Even where there is progress in this regard, it has often been a switch to partnering with local NGOs rather than with national government, which requires a very different way of working.

3.4 Scale - social protection offers an opportunity to work at scale, so that policies and programmes have much greater impact. This is a challenge for INGOs, which are more used to working with projects targeting smaller numbers of beneficiaries. This larger target group can be daunting. It also means that programmes need to be much simpler (so they can be delivered by government) and more cost-effective.

One of the key challenges is how to get to scale. The role of pilots in providing evidence for governments is a topic of current debate. Pilots can be useful for testing design aspects when operating under a nationally-owned policy framework. However, there is already sufficient evidence that non-emergency cash transfers make a useful contribution to livelihoods and the proliferation of small, independent pilots that are innovating in isolation only serve to undermine and bypass governments. In fact, the evidence⁵ shows that it is initiatives, which evolve out of domestic political agendas and respond to local conceptualisations and prioritisations of need that are more likely to 'succeed'.

3.5 Funding - a major point of concern for INGOs around social protection is funding. It's not yet clear what resources will be available for INGOs to support the new agenda. Part of this lack of clarity is linked to the absence of long-term funding commitments by donors for social protection. Social protection work also does not fit into the usual projectised approach favoured by INGOs, as it requires a more creative way of working. Donors are also divided on how much investment by INGOs in national policy processes they are willing to fund (DFID and USIAD have divergent policies on this).

It does not make sense for donors to give funds to NGOs to then pass them onto a government programme. Ideas for the future include comprehensive on-budget programmes that INGOs contribute to or governments commissioning INGOs to carry out specific tasks. The latter point raises issues around how much political space would be maintained by INGOs to then influence national policy.

3.6 Focus of engagement - at present, some INGOs are working on clear focus areas within the new social protection agenda, but the majority of INGOs are either engaging on a more ad hoc basis or are still working out how to get involved. For those already engaged, agencies are adopting different approaches; some are focusing on implementation of programmes and others are working to mobilise civil society to advocate to government to fulfil their rights, in part, through the delivery of social protection. Where there needs to be more emphasis is on i) joining up these different approaches to optimise their efficacy; and ii) understanding where they fit within the wider political arena in which they are operating⁶.

There is also a split between priority objectives: focusing on one particular constituency (e.g. 'the hungry') vis a vis adopting a multiple perspective. The latter means viewing social protection as the way forward for a broad and varied array of constituencies under a comprehensive framework, such as through age-based grants, etc. These divisions reflect divergence within the broader social protection debates. They create confusion for all stakeholders, but particularly for governments, who are currently receiving mixed and often conflicting guidance. This slows and disrupts progress.

4. The options for engagement with the new social protection agenda

Notwithstanding the challenges raised in section 3 above, there is room for INGOs to engage more effectively in the new social protection agenda. INGOs need to adopt a more unified approach to social protection, rather than different agencies pursuing individual agendas. A basic agreement to focus on educating key politicians and policy-makers in-country to enable them to take control of the debate would be a useful starting point. The provision of options rather than one solution would be helpful. Mobilising civil society in those countries to participate in the debate and raise it up the national agenda is also important. INGOs could help with both processes but need to be clear (and unified) themselves around the issues, both from a technical and political perspective.

Once national policies and programmes are being designed and implemented, there is a spectrum of activities and approaches that INGOs could adopt, according to their comparative advantage. These include the following:

4.1 Designing and implementing policy and programmes

Social protection policies and programmes are at very different stages in different countries. In most African countries the main drivers of policy development are donors (especially World Bank and DFID)⁷. The process is highly political and there are many different interests, which are often conflicting. INGOs have a role in lobbying and advocating for more national engagement and ownership. Nurturing political will is key to achieving long-term, national systems.

In some countries DFID is inviting INGOs to participate in policy development but governments aren't necessarily sharing this view. Where there more space to engage, INGOs need to bring resources to the table, as well as technical expertise and commitment to supporting the process. A valuable contribution that INGOs could make is in preparing a joint inventory of all the existing social protection programmes they are implementing. Few countries have this resource and it is an essential requirement for progressing from pilots to on-budget programmes.

Instead of setting up pilots that run independently of government, INGOs can play a role as government implementing agents for comprehensive, on-budget programmes.

4.2 Evidence building

There is a significant demand for evidence of the impact of social protection programmes both to feed into policy development and to secure funding commitments. INGOs could play a greater role in supporting the development, dissemination and uptake of evidence. This requires a degree of rigour and expertise that isn't always evident in INGO projects. However, the potential is there for INGOs to contribute to the design and implementation of M&E systems and impact evaluations, especially of scaled-up social transfer programmes. This would require a much more quantitative approach to impact assessment. There is also the issue of training and capacity-building especially at sub-national levels, where INGOs would be well-placed to contribute and which could build upon existing INGO - local government relationships.

There are interesting possibilities that could be taken up, such as data gathering for long-term social mobility studies drawing from INGO programmes in different countries. Analysis of this data set would provide a better understanding of poverty dynamics over time and support to policy influencing.

4.3 Social accountability

There are different aspects of improving accountability around social protection programmes that INGOs could potentially play a role:

1. Mobilising civil society - the Livingstone Call for Action stated that social protection policies have the potential to "strengthen the social contract between the state and citizens, enhancing social cohesion". Fulfilling this potential by investing in social protection involves strengthening the voice and capabilities of civil society to express the interests of citizens, as well as strengthening the architecture of the state. Civil society groups are concerned that some social transfer programmes are being designed and piloted with little consultation or public debate, and an important opportunity to shape the future in the interests of those citizens most affected is being missed. It is important to bring in as wide a range of civil society organisations as possible, especially local organisations with local knowledge and experience, which are often excluded from policy consultations. INGOs can work with others to build consensus around broad, effective and sustainable programmes.



2. Tracking performance - democratisation and decentralisation reforms are creating new channels of dialogue in local governance. Participatory budgeting is rapidly gaining attention from governments, civil society and INGOs as an effective platform for strengthening citizens' voice in budget planning and delivery of public goods and services. The use of score cards to track and evaluate service delivery also works to strengthen the contract between governments and citizens. This work could be applied to social protection.



3. Grievance systems - there is a need for a system to inform potential participants of their rights to participate in social protection programmes and to provide a vehicle for addressing complaints and grievances. This may include defining a programme bill of rights, designing a grievance procedure system, implementing an outreach programme and establishing a rights ombudsperson who is independent from programme management.

4.4 Complementary programmes

One national social protection programme will not serve as a panacea for reducing poverty severity⁸. Complementary programmes are needed to add value, particularly to transfer programmes. These may be complementary social protection programmes or other kinds of development interventions that link with social protection. Linkages need to be made between social protection and emergency programming⁹, disaster risk reduction, agriculture, savings and loans, health and education etc. For example, the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia delivers cash or food transfers to beneficiaries through a national safety net. In some areas the transfers are given in isolation; in other areas complementary food security programmes provide additional support.

INGOs could contribute to making these links both at field level and at policy level, based on evidence around needs and impact. This will require proactive action by the INGOs, as it's currently a missing link in the policy debates.

4.5 Broadening the debate

There is currently a significant groundswell of interest in demand-side social protection (the provision of transfers to increase purchasing power). Investing in supply side services is also important, for example strengthening health and education services. Other supply side interventions include the use of price stabilisation policies and strategic grain reserves. INGOs could play a stronger role in advocating for a more measured approach to the use of different social protection instruments to balances out the current focus on demand-side interventions.

5. The way forward

5.1 Immediate

What needs to be done is for INGOs to work jointly to identify a strategic approach to social protection that is clearly defined and works to support government social protection strategies and policies (existing and potential). A globally agreed platform that can be implemented nationally, according to different contexts, would provide guidance on how INGOs move forward in a more strategic and coherent way.

There is an immediate opportunity for INGOs to work jointly around 2 separate but linked initiatives, which both provide an opportunity for better unity:

• Preparation for the Livingstone 2 process (meetings scheduled for March 2008. HelpAge is working with the AU to guide this; other INGOs could participate.



• Development of a regional platform to support national dialogue: The Grow Up Free From Poverty Coalition (GUFFP) and Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP), supported by DFID, are preparing a regional platform to support national dialogues on the development of social protection systems in African countries. This will mobilise civil society to increase their involvement in the development of comprehensive national social protection policies and the implementation of programmes.

Other immediate steps include:

• Joint revision and endorsement of the RHVP policy briefs by a range of stakeholders. The briefs have been developed to bridge the knowledge gap between national governments and other stakeholders around social protection¹⁰



• Preparation of consolidated national inventories of INGO and government initiatives in social protection by country. Such inventories could help INGOs and governments identify opportunities for working together.

5.2 Medium term

A range of options have been provided to enable INGOs to provide effective contributions to the new social protection agenda (section 4). The options that INGOs will choose will depend on their comparative advantage and the context of the country. However, there are some broad principles that all INGOs should adopt:

• Supporting national processes rather than working independently



• Having a strategic approach to social protection



• Building on comparative advantage through development of new skills



• Working towards a unified INGO community approaches social protection from a multiple perspective



• Working to create political space to enable civil society participation in national policy development

Footnotes

1. Grateful thanks go to Robby Mwiinga and Nancy Drost (CARE Zambia) for sharing their experiences with CARE's social protection work in Zambia. Karen Tibbo is the Regional Social Protection Adviser for CARE International, based in the southern Africa office, Johannesburg. KTibbo@caresa.co.za.
2. This refers to the most recent iteration of social protection, which is in itself is not a new concept. The current focus is heavily supported by donors with the objective of developing national social protection systems. Social protection encompasses a broad range of actions (public and civic) that provide direct support to address risk, vulnerability, exclusion and hunger. There are three major elements of social protection: i) social equity (public awareness activities, stigma reduction, or legislative efforts to strengthen the justice system); ii) social insurance (contributory schemes, both formal and informal) and iii) social transfers (e.g. non-contributory pensions, child benefit grant, disability allowance).
3. http://www.grow-up-free-from-poverty.org/assets/docs/Livingstone%20call%20for%20action%20March%202006.pdf
4. The aims of a safety net approach are economic protection with a focus on growth. It usually fits with donor agendas and is externally financed through a 'project'. A social rights approach is a more bottom-up, state financed agenda that strives towards an institutionalised social contract between the state and its citizens in pursuit of an equity objective. Much of the current discourse includes aspects of both approaches.
5. See the RHVP review of 20 social protection programmes in southern Africa.
6. See forthcoming paper by Stephen Devereux and Philip White, Pilots, principles or patronage: what makes social protection succeed in southern Africa? Paper prepared for the workshop: 'Social Protection and Ideologies of Welfare in Southern Africa' University of Oxford, December 2007.
7. There are some exceptions e.g. the Government of Lesotho designed and implemented its own national pension scheme
8. Poverty severity is the gap between the poverty line and those who live below it. Reducing poverty frequency (ie number of people below the poverty line) is harder through social protection because the funding investments are too low
9. Emergency programming is considered by some people to fall under the social protection umbrella
10. http://www.wahenga.net/index.php/rhvp_publications/advocacy_briefs/