Safety Nets in Africa

Effective Mechanisms to Reach the Poor and Most Vulnerable

Carlo del Ninno, Bradford Mills

• Publisher: World Bank
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781464804359
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The need for safety nets in Sub-Saharan Africa is vast. In addition to being the world's poorest region, Sub-Saharan Africa is also one of the most unequal. In this context, redistribution must be seen as a legitimate way to fight poverty and ensure shared prosperity - and all the more so in countries where growth is driven by extractive industries that are not labor-intensive and often employ very few poor people. Given that most African countries face difficult decisions about how to allocate limited resources among a number of social programs, evidence is important. Do Safety Net programs actually benefit the poorest people? This book demonstrates with empirical evidence that it is possible to reach the poorest and most vulnerable people with safety net programs, and provides lessons for the effective use of targeting methods to achieve this outcome in the region.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Safety Nets in Africa—Effective Mechanisms to Reach the Poor and Most Vulnerable
• 2 Effective Targeting Mechanisms in Africa: Existing and New Methods
• 3 Generating a System for Targeting Unconditional Cash Transfers in Cameroon
• 4 Options for Improving the Targeting of Safety Nets in Ghana
• 5 Short- and Long-Term Targeting in Kenya
• 6 Targeting Methods to Identify the Poorest in Malawi
• 7 Climatic Shocks and Poverty Dynamics in Mozambique
• 8 Evaluation of Targeting Methods and Impact of the Cash Transfer Pilot in Niger
• 9 Targeting Effectiveness of Safety Net Programs in Senegal
• 10 Conclusion: Further Investments for Targeting Safety Net Programs
• Index
• Boxes
• Figures
• Tables