Last week I attended the Centre for Social
Protection conference on Graduation and Social Protection, co-hosted by the
Ministry of Local Government of the Government of Rwanda, with support from
Irish Aid, UNICEF and DFID. I would like to share some of my personal
reflections on the conference. They are by no means representative of the
number of issues that were discussed, and I recommend reading Stephen
Devereux's comprehensive ‘Learning Insights and Action Points’ on the
conference website.
Graduation describes the moment when
beneficiaries of a transfer programme (cash, food or assets) pass a
threshold and manage to sustain a
certain level of wellbeing over a period of time after exiting the programme.
The rationale is that the transfers and complementary interventions (skills
training, microloans) will allow beneficiaries to move out of poverty by
increasing and maintaining their income generating potential and productivity and
become resilient to shocks. The concept was pioneered by BRAC in Bangladesh and
has been adopted by programmes such as the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in
Ethiopia and Vision 2020 Umurenge Programme
(VUP) in Rwanda.
Here are my take-away points from the conference:
1. Beneficiaries
are often still poor after graduating
Despite some success stories, most
'graduates' are still poor after graduation. Maybe they managed to move from
extreme poverty into moderate poverty, or from food insecurity into food
sufficiency. But they are still poor and in many cases they might fall back because
their context hasn't changed. They are still vulnerable to shocks, they might
still have limited access to markets and basic services and in most cases after
leaving the programme they no longer have access to a social safety net.
Taking into account the limitations of any
single programme to address the multiple causes of poverty, maybe we shouldn't
punch above our weight and claim that livelihood promotion programmes can
achieve sustainable graduation? Maybe we
need to be more realistic, and call programmatic thresholds 'exits from the
programme', rather than 'graduation thresholds', as the VUP programme in Rwanda
already does.
2.
Systemic approach: yes, but let's not overburden social protection
The challenge seems to lie in drawing a
line between where social protection ends and where 'other' interventions
start, e.g. supplying basic services, facilitating access to labour markets, promoting
inclusive economic growth. As one participant said, "social protection cannot become the solution for all of
governments' failures". It is
one part of the graduation puzzle and incomplete without the rest. We need to
figure out how the different pieces fit together.
This line however should not in itself
represent a point of no return, when people graduate permanently out of social
protection. It rather demarcates responsibilities and highlights
complementarities between programmes and
sectors. Social protection is required
on a permanent basis to help people manage the range of risks they encounter
throughout a lifetime.
3. Learning
lessons..
...across actors: The
presentations covered a range of different approaches, from small NGO-led
pilots to nation-wide government programmes across Africa, Asia and Latin
America. Important lessons can be drawn from these cases on what works and what
doesn't. NGOs can test different models, provide more extensive, individualised
support to beneficiaries, even if only on a short-term basis. Governments are
looking at more long-term and scalable approaches that are financially
sustainable and reach a larger group of beneficiaries. Pooling the experiences
and evidence and sharing lessons will help to design programmes that improve
the chances of poor households to climb up the ladder.
...within programmes: As
one participant said "Let's focus on
doing it well. Let's focus on getting programme delivery right, on time, as
promised." Delivering a transfer programme in itself is already quite challenging.
One consultant working on the PSNP in Ethiopia told me that at the higher policy
level people are discussing a comprehensive social protection framework, whilst
at the district level there isn't enough capacity to allow the programme to
work as it is. Comprehensive approaches are important, but maybe we need to focus on delivering well
first, before jumping ahead and complicating things?
...from beneficiaries:
One panellist said "No offence to
all you academics, but we do a lot of thinking for people who live poverty 24
hours a day". Much of our discussions focus on how and who to target,
what kind of support to give and where to set the benchmark. Whilst these are
all important issues that are part of the reality of programmes, it often
distracts from focusing on the beneficiaries and understanding the range of challenges
they face every day to 'graduate out of poverty'.
Thanks to the organisers and participants
for sharing their experiences and making this conference possible!
Martina Ulrichs is an independent
consultant and IDS Alumni Ambassador for Canada. This blog is part of the Graduation and Social Protection blog series featured on Povertics, The VPR team blog.
