Why does COVID-19 provide a lesson for Africa to finance social assistance?

African countries have responded quickly to the COVID-19 threat by implementing various measures to contain its spread. Most of the continent is blocked or under curfew, or a combination of both.

Unfortunately, these measures have resulted in the loss of livelihoods for many people, particularly in the informal sector. It is estimated that 85.5% of workers across the continent work in the informal sector.

To protect formal and informal economies from lasting damage and vulnerable households from shortages of income and food, African governments have taken a number of social protection measures.

Rwanda, in East Africa, has a temporary aid program that delivers free food to households that have been negatively affected by the ongoing blockade. His goal is to reach 20,000 of those homes. Tunisia, in North Africa, made available $ 155 million to help poor families or those who have lost their jobs. South Africa introduced an unemployment income grant and increased the number of existing social grants.

Most of the responses introduced in the continent are temporary, instead of institutionalized social assistance measures. But what is the status of social assistance programs in Africa and how adequate are they to protect people against loss of livelihood?

Social assistance in Africa

State-run social assistance includes institutionalized cash transfers, food transfers (not school meals), and public works programs.

Cash transfers dominate, constituting 72% of social assistance in Africa. Most of these programs are in southern Africa. They include children’s benefits, disability benefits, old-age pensions and veterans’ benefits.

Only three countries in Central Africa have cash transfers: Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and … or Tomé and Príncipe.

Public works make up 23% of social assistance in Africa, food transfers 2%, and the rest combines cash, food, or public works. The Ethiopian Productive Safety Net Program, for example, offers a combination of cash transfers, food transfers … millions of rural citizens.

Social assistance programs in Central Africa are primarily designed and funded by international partners, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which finances rural youth jobs in Burundi. Its reach is low compared to the number of people living in poverty in these countries. And for the most part they are inadequate to lift recipients out of poverty.

For example, cash transfers in the Republic of the Congo reach only 5% of the children who need them. The amount of cash transfer per capita per day is also below the World Bank’s international poverty line per capita daily.

In contrast, social assistance programs in South Africa and East Africa are institutionalized and internally funded. They are of a larger scale and their transfers are adequate.

For example, the social assistance program in Mauritius reaches all children in need, and cash transfers per capita exceed the international poverty line. The same is true for Botswana and South Africa.

However, several countries in eastern and southern Africa are struggling to finance social assistance programs to improve their reach and adequacy. These include Madagascar, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Some countries, such as Eritrea, Somalia and South Sudan, do not have state social assistance programs.

Most social assistance in Africa is directed at poor and vulnerable children and the elderly. People with disabilities, youth and other adults are often excluded. Vulnerable people with disabilities are not covered by any cash transfers in all Central African countries.

COVID-19 emergency relief responses

Countries that have institutionalized social assistance or depend on national resources to finance their social assistance programs did not hesitate to provide emergency aid to mitigate the effects caused by the containment measures of COVID-19. These countries include Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa.

By April 2, several countries in North, West and South Africa had introduced emergency relief measures in response to the challenges posed by the blockades. By April 9, some East African countries had also followed suit. As of April 24, new countries that introduced social protection measures included Angola, Chad, Libya, and Nigeria.

The emerging pattern of COVID-19 responses in the past month shows that countries with weak state-run social assistance, such as those in Central Africa, lag far behind in protecting livelihoods and the economy from lasting damage. .

It is difficult to expect these countries to receive significant foreign assistance. This is because its global partners, including France, the United States and the United Kingdom, are severely affected by the pandemic. Therefore, they are unlikely to focus their attention elsewhere. In any case, even before COVID-19, the international assistance provided to these countries was not enough.

What to do

African countries need to find national sources, through taxes, to finance social assistance programs to support their citizens. There are three basic reasons that this must happen.

First, internal funding will always be necessary in the event of a global crisis or pandemic like COVID-19, and global partners cannot help significantly.

Second, it is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. Countries that depend on donor funding struggle to fund emergency aid for those affected by the COVID-19 blockades. They are not used to it. In contrast, countries that are used to financing their own social assistance have been quick to finance emergency aid to mitigate the effects of blockades, especially on poor people.

Third, international financing, although necessary and much-needed on the continent, has unintended consequences. This is because it tends to remove the incentive for African governments to establish their own social assistance programs. And the primarily short-term nature of the finances of global partners means that they cannot be used as the basis for creating large-scale, long-term social assistance programs.

That is why the African Union advocates the use of internal resources for social assistance.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.