Assessing Administrative Capacity and Costs of Cash Transfer Schemes in Zambia ? Implications for Rollout
The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS) has taken the decision to rollout in 2009 a national social cash transfer scheme (SCTS) to cover the whole country by 2012. Thus far, social cash transfer schemes are being piloted in five districts in Southern and Eastern Provinces. The schemes are using structures created for the implementation of the Public Welfare Assistance System (PWAS) which rise from community level all the way to the national level. The adoption of pilot SCTS in Zambia follows the growing acceptance of social cash transfers as a means for assisting extremely poor households. Partly, this is due to the positive impact of conditional cash transfers in Latin America with respect to school enrolments, improved health and reduction in poverty levels for participating households. An evaluation of the Kalomo SCTS revealed a number of achievements with respect to impact on the beneficiaries including a rise in self-esteem and confidence among beneficiaries, reduced incidence of begging, increased food consumption, increased asset ownership and positive impacts for the local economy. Field work for this assessment although not focused on assessing impacts noted qualitative evidence of these findings. Implementation of pilot schemes started in 2004 with the Kalomo SCTS followed by one in 2005 in Kazungula, 2006 in Chipata and in 2007 in Monze and Katete. The schemes have been implemented with some variation so that they ?generate information on the feasibility, costs and benefits and negative impacts of a Social Cash Transfer Scheme?? (Zulu and Schuring, May 2007, p.1). Each of the pilot scheme has been designed to form a part of the learning agenda that would utilise lessons towards the design of a national social cash transfer. It is also being assessed as to the extent to which the PWAS structures are able to accommodate social cash transfer along existing social welfare activities.
Perspectives on Inequality and Social Protection
The dissertation consists of an introductory chapter and four separate articles. Two of the articles investigate the links between income inequality and two increasingly salient development problems, particularly in Latin America and Africa: violent crime and HIV. These two articles connect to a broad literature on how income inequality is related to various social and political outcomes. Previous econometric findings are reviewed, replicated and in some cases questioned. Alternative theories on mechanisms that constitute the link from inequality to these social outcomes are formulated and some preliminary steps are taken to test them against each other. The last two articles focus on specific issues related to the provision of social protection in the form of social transfers: the impact of social pensions on fertility in sub-Saharan Africa and the potential use of external financing to relax the affordability constraint for introducing social transfers in low-income countries. Findings are presented in support of the assumption that the introduction of social pensions would tend to reduce fertility, also in sub-Saharan Africa. The last article discusses and problematizes the use of external financing for social transfers. It points out risks as well as opportunities and suggests innovative aid modalities.
Reexploring the Interface between Economic and Transport Geography
Mobility and economy The relationship between the movement of goods and people, and economic and social development appears to be stronger than ever. Indeed, the assumption of a `postmodern' or `postindustrial' economy and society has intensified the focus on different forms of mobility (Creswell, 2001). A general hypothesis in this respect is that the significance of flows of goods, people, and information is rising, based on changes in scale (Dicken, 2003) and driven by the latest innovations in information and communication technologies (Janelle, 2004). As new scales are constructed and as new technologies become more widely adopted, both virtual and physical transactions contribute to what is often described as a shrinking globe, indicating significant changes in spatial and temporal relations. In turn, these newly emerging systems of flows and nodes and their network aggregates are shaping our understanding of how social relations and space are intertwined (see Crang, 2002). Not surprisingly, much recent discourse in the social sciences, human geography, and urban theory focuses on metaphors such as the `network society' (Castells, 1996). Yet the notion of the network is not really new at all; analyses of flows and mobility occupy a long-standing prominence in geography (Leinbach, 1976). Current developments in freight and logistics networks mirror those observed by economic geographers in relational production networks (Coe et al, 2004), even if the core transport science does not make explicit reference to these developments. Likewise, economies have in fact never been restricted to isolated locales [or `states' (compare von Thu« nen, 1826)]; rather, local development has for long been recognized as something that is related to development elsewhere (Lipietz, 1993). In this respect, a major determinant of local economic development across space has been the geography of transport. Thus for example, among the traditional approaches to spatial theory, such as Weber's (1909) location choices of industry, Hoover's (1948) treatise on transport costs, Ullman's (1954) concept of trade flows, or Isard's (1956) attempt to create a general theory, spatial differentiation was always more or less directly linked to transport conditions and costs, and the opportunities or frictions to overcome the limitations given by them. However, the traditional transport cost-based determination perpetuated a certain construction of the world on the basis of `physical' and technological features, such as the size, density, and distance of flows. Probably the best example of this simplified view of the world is given by the gravity model (see Black, 2003, 162f ). It attempted to èxplain' and predict the degree of spatial interaction (and thus spatial distribution) according to size and distance, size being regarded as directly, and distance as inversely, correlated with interaction. Moreover, spatial features such as the development of market areas, regional convergence, or corporate location behaviour were interpreted as being dependent mainly on transport costs, somehow mediated through particular conditions of accessibility and infrastructure provision. Improvements in transport technologies, the massive enlargement of infrastructure and falling transport costs, not least thanks to cheap oil, changed the role of transport in the second half of the 20th century. Paradoxically, these improvements were very effective in putting transport out of consideration in economic geography. Guest editorial Environment and Planning A 2006, volume 38, pages 1401 ^ 1408