Giving people choices

It's a long weekend in South Africa, and the annual Cape Town book fair is on again. I attended two very interesting sessions, one on Saturday and one today (Monday). Today's session was a full day, looking at information for social change, and the possibilities and constraints of new technology. I'll write more about that in a couple of days. What I want to write about now is Saturday's session -- a panel discussion on social grants, and whether they are causing dependency.

The panel was organised by HSRC press. (This publisher, an arm of the Human Sciences Research Council in SA, by the way, has an interesting policy -- if you don't want to shell out money for a hard copy, all of its books are available free as online downloads. See www.hsrcpress.ac.za. They are also interesting in that they make use of Facebook as a marketing tool).

There is currently a lot of focus in Africa, on what's called social protection -- basically the provision of support to vulnerable members of society, by means of transfers -- cash, vouchers, food, etc. Most attention is on the potential of cash transfers -- in the form of pensions, child support and disability grants, for example.

But there is still a lot of scepticism among governments, as well as in the media, about such grants. People are worried that they create dependency, and that the recipients waste the money they are given.

The members of the panel, all of them top academics, talked about examples from South Africa, which has an extensive social protection system, and where a lot of research has been done on the effectiveness of such grants.

It is clear that while there are some glitches and unintended consequences of grants, all the evidence shows that such grants do not create dependency, and that people almost always use the money wisely. Such grants also have a range of very positive impacts.

For example, evidence shows that in houses where there is a pensioner receiving a government pension, children are measurably healthier, and get better nutrition. Also, that far from creating dependency the pensions and grants give people greater independence. For example, many pensioners take the money they get, and use some of it to buy goods, which they then trade in order to make a bit more money -- often doubling their money in the process. This example also shows why it's important to give people cash, rather than food, as cash leads to growth in local economies, it gives people choices (spend some on food, invest some, spend some on education, etc). In other cases, having some money in the household enables men and women of working age to travel to look for work.

It seems clear that much of the scepticism about cash grants to the vulnerable is based on two things: anecdotal evidence, rather than rigorous research (someone knows someone who happens to spend his pension on alcohol, and they mistakenly take this to indicate a general trend), and prejudice against the poor (they are ignorant and irresponsible).

Social protection policies are currently being discussed and debated in several African countries (in fact, the AU is busy with a series of continent-wide meetings on the issue). But many governments are reluctant. It is up to civil society to begin publicising the positive impacts of social grants, and to begin to pressure governments to prioritise such programmes. It is proven that cash transfers to the most vulnerable play an important role in reducing poverty and inequality -- very important if we wish to ensure our societies are stable in the future.