International donors, domestic politics, and the expansion of social cash transfers in Malawi

Abstract

Motivation: International donors piloted social cash transfers in Africa in the 2000s. Successful pilots need to be expanded, to be nationally owned, and to be funded by regular budgets. How this may be done depends on domestic politics, which vary by country. Donors need to engage with local politics if they wish their pilots to be institutionalized. Malawi is one such case, where a change of president opened a window for policy reforms. Purpose: Why were donors, over six years, unable to persuade Bingu wa Mutharika's government of Malawi to adopt social cash transfers; but succeeded with Joyce Banda's administration within two months of her being in office? Methods and approach: I adopt John Kingdon's multiple streams framework, originally developed in 1984 to explain how agenda are set in the USA. He observed separate streams of problems, potential policy responses, and politics which may converge at critical juncturespolicy windows-when new policies may be adopted. I interviewed 25 policy-makers in Malawi, including political leaders, donor staff, government civil servants, and civil society officers to trace policy-making for social cash transfers. Findings: Malawi can be seen to have a super-presidential system, in which presidents and their closest allies overwhelmingly set the agenda, aligned to their ideological views and political interests. When presidents change, a policy window opens. Mutharika prioritized increasing the maize harvest and stabilizing the economy. The input subsidies used to achieve the former, he saw as "home-grown" solutions, were preferred to donor orthodoxies. Social protection was for him another donor orthodoxy. It did not align with his beliefs and conflicted with his interests in food security. When Mutharika died suddenly in 2012, Vice-President Banda took over. Her experience was different to that of her predecessor: she had worked with civil society, was acutely aware of poverty, and had good relations with external non-governmental organizations and donors. She saw priorities in rising vulnerability and exclusion, she favoured safety nets, and was anxious to gain support for her administration. Social protection came rapidly into favour, pilots were expanded into a national programme. Policy implications: Political leaders support programmes that benefit both development and political survival. Understanding how a brief

Development assistance, donor–recipient dynamic, and domestic policy: a case study of two health interventions supported by World Bank–UK and Global Fund in China

“…While the existing literature on policy diffusion has identified potential alternative explanations on other factors that might influence transnational policy diffusion through DAH, the two cases exhibit similarities in these factors, suggesting that these may not be the key determinants of the differences in policy diffusion outcomes between the cases. One important factor scholars highlighted is the critical juncture for policy reforms [ 108 ]. However, while there was a leadership change and the outbreak of SARS in 2002–2003, which favored prioritizing medical assistance [ 55 , 67 ], the government also demonstrated a strong political commitment to address concerns about the financial gap in HIV/AIDS CSOs, particularly in response to the Fund’s exit in 2012 [ 81 ].…”

The politics of ‘institutionalising’ social protection in Africa: The retrenchment of social cash transfers in Zambia, 2015–2021

“…In Malawi, SCT disbursements were suspended from 2010 to 2012 after donors withdrew, the government was slow to disburse benefits even in the one district where it had assumed responsibility; when payments resumed, they remained ‘erratic’ (Angeles et al, 2016, pp. 295–296; Siachiwena, 2023). In Zimbabwe, SCT payments were irregular in the early 2010s and faltered altogether during 2016 – running up to eight months late – in the face of donor withdrawal and the government’s fiscal crisis (Angeles et al, 2018, p. 15).…”

“…Initially, in the mid-2000s, the governing Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) had opposed SCTs, preferring rather subsidies for farming inputs to small-and medium-scale farmers (through the Farmer Input Support Programme, FISP) as well as price support (through the Food Reserve Agency, FRA), which controversially benefitted constituencies that were perceived to be loyal to the MMD, local officeholders, and suppliers of fertiliser and other inputs (Andrew, 2021;Kabandula & Seekings, 2016;Kuss, 2015;Nkinke, 2023). Although the government did begin to commit modest funds for SCT pilots from 2008, it consistently overspent its budget for both FISP and the FRA (Pruce & Hickey, 2019;Siachiwena, 2020).…”

“…Donors spent what they had promised, but their share was smaller than the government's. Close to 110,000 households (about 45 percent of the caseload) went unpaid for the first eight months of the year (Siachiwena, 2020). In 2017, the government spent most but not all of what it had budgeted.…”

“…government spending on social cash transfers would increase sevenfold in order 'to make a significant impact on reducing extreme poverty'. A major implication of this announcement was that the government increased its share of funding the SCT budget from 24% in 2013 to 75% in 2014 (Siachiwena, 2020). The minister also committed to increasing spending on other social protection programmes, including the Food Security Pack (FSP) for households with the potential to start small-scale farming (Chikwanda, 2013, p. 8).…”