Using social assistance systems to address acute needs arising from wide-scale shocks – commonly known as ‘shock-responsive social protection’ (SRSP) – raises significant political economy questions. Previously, acute needs caused by disasters across sub-Saharan Africa have primarily been met by humanitarian actors alone. SRSP disrupts the status quo by reducing humanitarian actors’ access to and control over humanitarian funding. This raises significant political questions; likewise, the introduction by SRSP of greater accountability and transparency into the implementation of humanitarian responses. This article addresses a current gap in the literature: the politics of SRSP. Referencing the concept of political settlements, the article asks what explains the evolution of SRSP in Malawi by examining the actions of domestic and international actors. It finds that there is scant evidence of national ownership of SRSP and that lack of consensus among international actors is a key obstacle to the concept becoming embedded within the political settlement.
Social protection, shock-responsive social protection, shock-sensitive social protection, Malawi, political settlements, national actors, international actors.
Social assistance has evolved in sub-Saharan Africa with a primary focus on helping to address the chronic needs of individuals and households. For instance, core objectives of unconditional cash transfer programmes – sometimes referred to as ‘routine’ social assistance – commonly include poverty reduction and building human capital. These programmes are often directed at helping people cope with idiosyncratic (individual- or household-level) risks.
However, the last decade or so has seen a growing recognition across the region of how social assistance can be leveraged in times of covariate shocks – i.e. events that affect whole communities or groups (not just individuals or households) – such as conflict, floods, droughts, economic crises, and pandemics. One umbrella term for this approach is ‘shock-responsive social protection’ (SRSP), which has been defined as ‘the adaptation of routine social protection programmes and systems to cope with changes in context and demand following large-scale shocks’ (European Commission 2019: 75).
SRSP can include both preparedness actions ahead of a shock (ex ante) that establish or enhance systems, plans, and partnerships, and actions after a shock (ex post) that provide support to shock-affected households, ideally in a way that complements humanitarian assistance (O’Brien et al. 2018a). Two common SRSP modalities are vertical expansion – a temporary increase in the transfer value or duration of an existing programme for some or all current beneficiaries; and horizontal expansion – an expansion of programme coverage to new households affected by a shock (O’Brien et al. 2018b).
There are several justifications for researching the politics of SRSP. Putting aside debates on SRSP’s definition and scope, which are beyond the purview of this article, leveraging social protection systems in response to shocks can have significant political implications at national and international levels.
SRSP can disrupt the status quo on access to and control of humanitarian resources. SRSP responds to a set of needs that the humanitarian sector has traditionally been asked to meet in many low- and middle-income countries. SRSP responds to these needs without funds flowing through humanitarian implementation structures. By leveraging national social protection mechanisms to address humanitarian needs, the business model and raison d’être of the humanitarian aid industry is undermined. Humanitarian and social protection agencies – both domestic and international – are therefore competing for access to, and control of, a finite envelope of humanitarian funding. In resource-poor environments, and particularly those characterised by patron–client relations, the implications for elites and institutions of losing access to humanitarian or development assistance can be significant.
For instance, since 2015, the national Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP) has been the main vehicle for implementing SRSP actions in Malawi, including vertical and horizontal expansions, usually in response to food insecurity. Such needs were hitherto met by humanitarian actors, but the growing use of the SCTP as a mechanism to address food insecurity means that there is less money (and power) accessible to international and domestic humanitarian actors than was previously the case.
SRSP also incorporates a broad set of actors who, relative to ministries responsible for social issues, might not be as familiar with or sympathetic to the concept of social assistance. SRSP stakeholders include national officials and parliamentarians with responsibility for climate change and disaster response; international humanitarian agencies (e.g. the World Food Programme, WFP); and national humanitarian coordination structures. Some of these stakeholders might not hold a favourable view of routine social protection (perhaps for ideological reasons associated with dependency and self-responsibility), and this might extend to SRSP. The idea of SRSP might therefore be a political issue, particularly if traditional humanitarian assistance is perceived by some as less controversial than delivering through social assistance systems.
There is growing recognition of the role of politics in development, including in social protection (Hickey et al. 2019). One strand of the expanding literature relates to political settlement theory, which provides a structure for thinking about governance and development outcomes in a way that extends beyond a focus on formal institutions and recognises the crucial role of informal institutions, particularly in developing countries. As explained by Kelsall et al. (2021: 4), the notion of a political settlement seeks to ‘uncover the underlying forms of power and politics that shape which institutions emerge and how they actually function in practice’. Conceptualisations of political settlement have expanded beyond an early focus on national actors and domestic politics to also include ideas (ideological or philosophical beliefs) and transnational actors (Khan 2010; Lavers and Hickey 2016; Kelsall and vom Hau 2020).
While the political implications of SRSP are highly significant, there is currently a dearth of research on this topic. This article draws inspiration from the growing scholarship on the political economy of social protection, in particular the concept of political settlements, and contributes to a gap in the literature by asking: What explains the evolution of SRSP in Malawi?
In exploring the politics of SRSP in Malawi, the article focuses on the explanatory power of two main variables – domestic and transnational (international) actors. It is nonetheless recognised that other factors might also hold explanatory power, including issues identified by Lavers and Hickey (2016) such as ideas and the broader ‘distributional regime’ (e.g. industrial policy, taxation, and social services). However, there is insufficient scope in this article to consider such factors, and indeed, there is likely limited existing empirical data which might uncover the politics of these factors as they relate to SRSP. (Future qualitative research is planned to explore these and other issues.)
The research methodology consisted of a review of published academic and grey literature. No primary data collection was undertaken, which creates some limitations, including that some conclusions about the motivations, perspectives, or interests of national or international actors are not based on direct empirical evidence collected for this article.
The author previously worked for UNICEF Malawi (2015–18) and has undertaken several consultancies in Malawi for international agencies in the years since 2018. Direct involvement in some of the events analysed in this article therefore introduces a potential bias or conflict of interest that may have influenced the interpretation of findings. Efforts have been made to maintain objectivity and impartiality throughout the research process. The article occasionally draws on insights from the author’s observations during the events in question. Such insights have been minimised and are acknowledged specifically with endnotes.
Section 2 provides an overview of the evolution and status of SRSP in Malawi. Section 3 outlines the extent to which SRSP is part of the political settlement in Malawi, and the associated drivers. Section 4 concludes.
This section provides a brief factual overview of the evolution and status of SRSP in Malawi and highlights which areas have been the focus of attention by selected international actors.3
The national policy framework for social protection – the Malawi National Social Support Programme (MNSSP) II (2018-23) – incorporates a specific pillar on ‘shock-sensitive social protection’ (SSSP) that seeks to protect gains made in terms of poverty reduction and human development from the impact of shocks. The SSSP pillar outlines a range of strategic actions that aim to prevent, mitigate, and respond swiftly to shocks, in cooperation with the humanitarian sector (Government of Malawi 2018). The MNSSP II conceptualises SRSP as one component of SSSP. The SSSP pillar specifies four areas of action, the third of which represents SRSP: (i) promotion of resilience to shocks in anticipation of crises; (ii) preparedness actions; (iii) support for households to meet their immediate needs in response to shocks; and (iv) support to recovery efforts by, for example, promoting the ‘building back better’ approach.
The origins of the MNSSP II lie in the 2016 multi-stakeholder review of the first MNSSP, which was commissioned by the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO also contracted the consultants who facilitated the 2017 consultation process which led to a draft MNSSP II document. Revisions to the draft were undertaken by ILO, UNICEF, WFP, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), and officials in Malawi’s Department of Economic Planning and Development (EP&D).
The MNSSP II envisaged a specific body for the coordination of SSSP activities and policy dialogue (Government of Malawi 2018). However, the Mid Term Review (MTR) of the MNSSP II implies that this structure has not yet been established. The MTR notes that establishing the necessary coordination and institutional arrangements for SSSP has proven challenging (Government of Malawi 2022).
Among national actors, the key stakeholders related to coordination of SSSP are the EP&D (which oversees social protection nationally) and the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DODMA) (which oversees humanitarian response). Prominent international actors include UNICEF, which has been involved in national social protection coordination structures, and WFP, which has established relationships with DODMA.
The primary social protection mechanism for SRSP in Malawi has been the SCTP, which reaches 10 per cent of the population and selects households which are characterised as both ultra-poor and labour constrained. Examples of the SCTP being used for SRSP include a vertical expansion pilot in 2016–17, and vertical and horizontal expansions in four districts in 2021–22 (Longhurst and Sabates-Wheeler 2019; UNICEF and WFP 2022). Another SRSP initiative was the Covid-19 Urban Cash Initiative (CUCI), which leveraged lessons from the SCTP and provided cash transfers through social protection structures to mitigate the adverse impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on urban poor populations (Paul et al. 2021).
The SCTP is implemented by the Ministry of Gender, Community Development, and Social Welfare (MGCDSW). EP&D provides broader oversight as part of its overall remit, including on SRSP activities leveraging the SCTP. Key international actors include UNICEF (which provides financial and technical assistance to MGCDSW), the World Bank, Irish Aid, and the European Union.
International donors fund 95 per cent of the SCTP’s budget (UNICEF 2023). While the financing of the SCTP and social protection more broadly has previously been fragmented, a pooled mechanism was announced in December 2023. Details of the structure have not been made public.4
Specific to SRSP, the World Bank and the government have developed a ‘scalability mechanism’ that outlines how SCTP systems should be leveraged to transfer cash assistance to poor households affected by droughts (Mkutumula et al. 2023). The mechanism focuses on the tools for channelling assistance and not the financing structures.
Key international actors involved in the financing of SRSP include the World Bank and the governments of Ireland, the UK, and Germany.
The Unified Beneficiary Registry (UBR) is a database which stores information on the 50 per cent poorest households in all districts in Malawi (some districts have 100 per cent coverage) (Msusa 2020; Government of Malawi 2022). The UBR was used as part of beneficiary targeting processes for SRSP during a 2016–17 trial in Dedza District (King and Tranchini 2017).
GIZ and the World Bank have provided substantial technical and financial assistance to design and expand the UBR. While government leadership of the UBR appears to have been strong at the time of a World Bank review in 2018 (Lindert et al. 2018), more recent analysis highlights technical and operational bottlenecks, limitations in national capacity, and the need to revive UBR oversight structures (Government of Malawi 2022).
Electronic payment systems for the SCTP – which are currently used for routine payments in ten districts (Twea 2023) – have been used for SRSP initiatives. If rolled out nationally, electronic payments are expected to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of SRSP responses to shocks.
UNICEF, the Government of Ireland, and the World Bank are the main international actors who have supported the conceptualisation and rollout of electronic payments in the SCTP.
This section sets out the key findings of the research. It first explores whether there has been domestic ownership of SRSP in Malawi, and then outlines potential drivers of the extent to which SRSP is part of the political settlement.
This subsection outlines three key findings regarding the actions of national and international actors with respect to SRSP.
The many examples of international actors being heavily engaged in SRSP policy dialogue in Malawi are instances of ‘policy pollination’ practices (Devereux 2020). To name just a few, international actors have financed a 2017 study on SRSP (Holmes et al. 2017); organised and funded a large delegation to conduct a study tour on SRSP to Ethiopia; helped draft the SSSP pillar in the MNSSP II; and convened a public panel discussion on SRSP in late 2016. While on paper these initiatives were badged as government owned and emphasised government leadership, in practice, development partners were deeply involved in their conceptualisation and delivery.5
Parallels can be drawn between SRSP and the previous practices of international actors in Malawi with regard to ‘routine’ social protection. Chinsinga (2007) found that the development of Malawi’s first social protection policy was characterised by a top-down donor-driven approach, without any involvement of politicians or lower-level government structures. His subsequent analysis of the SCTP found that it was dependent on international actors for financing and that the consultation process was also predominantly top-down (Chinsinga 2009).
These examples suggest that international actors have played a prominent role in shaping Malawi’s policy frameworks for social protection, including SRSP. However, as is argued later in this section, simply developing policies and strategies is by no means a measure of success of systems development (Kaltenborn et al. 2017) or evidence that the concept has become part of the political settlement.
Commencing in 2015, international actors – including UNICEF, WFP, Concern Worldwide, GIZ, and the World Bank – have funded, shaped, or delivered an array of SRSP initiatives, such as vertical expansions of the SCTP (Longhurst and Sabates-Wheeler 2019), the SCTP scalability framework (Mkutumula et al. 2023), and the development of a Management Information System (MIS) for Emergencies (Joint SDG Fund 2022). This is just a selective account; many more are detailed in Longhurst and Sabates-Wheeler (2019).
Notwithstanding the many likely benefits of these and other SRSP initiatives, it is reasonable to question whether the Malawian government was driving their ideation and design – particularly given the dominant role that donors have played in shaping the delivery of routine social assistance through the SCTP (Hemsteede 2023). These SRSP initiatives were not undertaken as part of a broader coalition of international partners working cohesively and coherently in support of government objectives, such as those that might be detailed in a sector strategic plan.6 And while some SRSP activities would likely have been undertaken in collaboration with government, and indeed, some would have required formal approval by government-led coordination structures, this is not the same as true domestic ownership of the SRSP agenda.
The available documentary evidence suggests that neither ‘top-down’ nor ‘bottom-up’ efforts have translated into broader ownership of SRSP by Malawian elites nor embeddedness within political discourse. A quantitative analysis of all parliamentary debates between 2001 and 2018 (excluding 2016) shows no references to SRSP or similar terms or concepts (Haworth 2020). Similarly, while the MNSSP II document suggests the government has formally endorsed the concept of SRSP, nested within the broader concept of SSSP, there is little evidence to show of wider adoption across government. Specifically, many strategic actions outlined in Pillar 3 have not yet been implemented, in particular a vision and roadmap for SSSP. The coordination structure for SSSP had still not yet been established more than six years after the first vertical expansion of the SCTP (Government of Malawi 2022). Analysis of the last five national budgets shows that the government has not allocated any domestic revenue to scaling up the SCTP in times of shock (UNICEF 2023). Taken as a whole, the existing evidence does not demonstrate that the government’s actions on SRSP might constitute something more than lip service.
The above findings suggest that SRSP is not yet part of the political settlement in Malawi. Why might that be the case?
Existing documentary evidence does not specifically identify the dynamics of SRSP within the Malawian state. Deeper research would be needed to understand, for instance, whether SRSP is supported by actors who stand to benefit (e.g. MGCDSW and EP&D) and/or blocked by potential losers (e.g. DODMA). The perspectives of the Ministry of Finance and other powerful central ministries are also unknown.
However, it is no surprise that, in one of the poorest countries in the world, and in a context of increasing frequency and intensity of shocks, humanitarian assistance is a politically significant activity in Malawi at both national and subnational levels. Indeed, research has pointed to the politicisation of humanitarian aid. For instance, the allocation of humanitarian cash transfers in 2016–17 was skewed towards electorates where the ruling party candidate either narrowly won or narrowly lost in 2014, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to sway voters to support government candidates (Duchoslav, Kenamu and Thunde 2023), presumably at the behest of national elites. Similarly, international donors expressed concern that the 2018–19 humanitarian response was at risk of becoming highly politicised and instrumentalised ahead of the 2019 presidential elections (Longhurst and Sabates-Wheeler 2019).
There may also be an emerging political tension regarding the interaction between Malawi’s annual humanitarian response and the SCTP. There is a growing consensus that the lean season response (i.e. the annual ‘humanitarian assistance’ for largely predictable situations) is being used to compensate for the inadequacy of routine social protection (UNICEF and WFP 2022). Expressed differently, the lean season response is effectively a subsidy for the social protection system, under the guise of a humanitarian response. The potential implications of this development are not yet clear and warrant deeper research.
Evaluations of SRSP activities have shed light on the community-level political dynamics involved in selecting beneficiaries for humanitarian response. When the UBR was used to identify which individuals or households should receive humanitarian assistance in Dedza District in 2016–17, there were opposing views on whether an external body was preferable to locally led selection processes. Some community members appreciated the enhanced transparency and reduced scope for influence by local leaders, whereas others said that selections should be made by chiefs (and not the UBR) as they had ‘real knowledge of who is poor’ (King and Tranchini 2017).
The fact that SRSP has not yet featured in any electoral campaigns in Malawi might indicate that politicians have not forgotten that President Joyce Banda incorporated support for the SCTP into her electoral strategy in 2014 but failed to retain power (Hamer and Seekings 2019; Siachiwena 2023). Malawian elites have also been found to hold concerns about the risks of poor people becoming dependent on the SCTP and a lack of fairness about direct redistribution (Kalebe-Nyamongo and Marquette 2014). Marginalised groups among the poor in Malawi are not politically important constituencies (Devereux 2020).
These selected examples, and the findings of Section 3.1, suggest that the politics of humanitarian assistance in Malawi might not be ready for the likely disruption that would be caused by fully embedding the concept of SRSP within national systems. Can international actors help to overcome this obstacle? This issue is explored next.
The fact that many international actors have helped to drive the SRSP agenda in Malawi presents both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, recent examples point to what can be achieved when these actors collaborate. A World Bank evaluation of the government’s social protection response to the Covid-19 pandemic in urban areas, the CUCI, noted that international actors took on roles in designing and implementing the initiative that worked to their comparative advantages, interests, and technical expertise (Paul et al. 2021). For instance, UNICEF led the scoping and design of payment systems, while WFP and ILO conducted analysis on possible transfer levels. Relatedly, pre-existing relationships between international actors, and also with government, which had been developed over years of previous SRSP work, were leveraged to positive effect in the design of the CUCI.
On the other hand, evidence of ongoing and substantial areas of disagreement points to more systemic threats to SRSP. In particular, there are indications of fragmentation between some of the most significant UN agencies working on SRSP. In 2022, UNICEF and WFP published a ‘joint position paper’ on SSSP in Malawi (UNICEF and WFP 2022). It is commendable that these two agencies have sought to agree on, and document, a range of policy issues on a sensitive topic (although it is notable that the document does not indicate whether the government was consulted). That said, the actual substance of the agreement is rather unremarkable. For instance, it is not surprising that UNICEF and WFP agree on the importance of SSSP and SRSP policy issues such as harmonised electronic payment systems, linkages to the national ID, communications, and social accountability (ibid.).
What is more revealing is the final page of the paper, which lists all the issues on which agreement has not been reached. The document explains the lack of agreement by noting that, on some issues, a ‘lack of hard evidence prevents both agencies from laying out clearly defined and shared operational solutions’. This list is quite lengthy and a close examination reveals a series of fundamental issues that go to the heart of the political economy of SRSP, such as how to address seasonal fluctuations, the role of anticipatory action, coordination between social protection and resilience initiatives, an automatic trigger system for SRSP, and the use of in-kind provision where cash is not viable, among others (UNICEF and WFP 2022: 26). An issue for further research is whether there is truly a ‘lack of hard evidence’ or whether this term is a euphemism for a failure to compromise and reach consensus.
Set against the backdrop of a national political settlement that does not appear predisposed to absorb or advocate for the concept of SRSP, is the lack of coherence between international actors a key obstacle to progress? This notion is explored further in the final section of this article.
Through top-down and bottom-up initiatives, international actors in Malawi have generated evidence and shaped the design and implementation of SRSP policies, programmes, and systems. However, these efforts do not appear to have penetrated or altered the fundamental domestic politics of SRSP, which at its heart involves a sensitive issue: yielding the market share of humanitarian response to the social protection system. SRSP therefore bears closer resemblance to an imported concept that is not yet integrated into domestic political processes, rather than the realisation of a political settlement in Malawi.
What are the obstacles to SRSP becoming part of the political settlement? Humanitarian responses are politically important activities, and national elites may have realised that SRSP brings financial opportunities but also threats to the status quo. On the one hand, SRSP compensates for an inadequate social protection system – i.e. averting a distributional crisis, albeit via an alternative means. But SRSP simultaneously presents a threat: it disrupts access to and control over humanitarian resources and also introduces greater accountability and transparency. For instance, using the UBR or other pre-populated databases implies a reduced role for chiefs in selecting eligible households, and electronic payments may reduce scope for informal sharing of cash by beneficiaries or collection of ‘fees’ by chiefs. These factors may help to explain the blockages to greater domestic political support for SRSP.
If the preference among national elites is to maintain the status quo, fragmentation among international actors undermines the scope for domestic ownership and stands as a key obstacle to SRSP becoming embedded within the political settlement. Disagreement on fundamental issues between major players such as UNICEF and WFP therefore presents a risk to SRSP because there appears to be no domestic momentum on the issue that stands independently of international actors. In such circumstances, the status quo seems likely to prevail.
The prospects of SRSP becoming fully embedded within the Malawian political settlement therefore appear dim without international actors resolving their differences and reaching a consensus. Recent research finds the SCTP has limited national ownership, and the power of international actors to shape the design and implementation of the SCTP has generated resistance among Malawian politicians (Hemsteede 2023). Might the same fate befall SRSP?
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Copyright © 2024 The Authors. IDS Bulletin © Institute of Development Studies | DOI: 10.19088/1968-2024.120
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited, any modifications or adaptations are indicated, and the work is not used for commercial purposes.
The IDS Bulletin is published by Institute of Development Studies, Library Road, Brighton, BN1 9RE, UK. This article is part of IDS Bulletin Vol. 55 No. 2 October 2024 ‘Reimagining Social Protection’; the Introduction is also recommended reading.