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The global economic crisis, public budgets and child-sensitive social protection in Sub-Saharan Africa Andy Sumner a.sumner@ids.ac.uk. Contents. The crisis so far The crisis in SSA so far and public budgets Policy responses, social protection, and policy narratives looking ahead
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The global economic crisis, public budgets and child-sensitive social protection in Sub-Saharan Africa Andy Sumner a.sumner@ids.ac.uk
Contents • The crisis so far • The crisis in SSA so far and public budgets • Policy responses, social protection, and policy narratives looking ahead • Conclusions
1. The crisis so far • What’s different? • Crisis origins in the industrialized countries; speed of global transmission; the size of the shock; compound nature (following fuel and food shocks) and long run impacts for children. • What happened and what didn’t? • Growth slowdown but few outright recessions; falls in exports; FDI; remittances but very variable; aid budgets under pressure but no large fall (yet?) • A new opportunity to promote social protection (SP)? • SP in East Asia a result of last crisis; strong evidence that SP is a cost-effective use of public budgets; many pilots in SSA and new resources - VFF, RSRP but will future fiscal concerns squeeze SP? • What does this all mean for child poverty?
Child poverty estimates of the current crisis Countries, people, US$ or child mortality: • 43 or 33 countries; • 46, 53, 90, 108 million new poor; • US$46 per poor African; • 200-400,000 more infant deaths. • Depends on growth/poverty assumptions (remember debates on poverty elasticities?) and whose growth estimates (IMF; World Bank; UN-DESA and revisions);
Child poverty impacts of previous crisis • MDG 1a Consumption poverty • unambiguous increases • MDG 1b and 2 Child nutrition/health/schooling • Generally worsen but not always – policy can prevent this. • Impacts and equity • Unequal impacts for children and by gender (HH coping mechanisms); • Other… • Strong evidence of psychological distress and mental health problems (Das, 2008); elevated levels of community and intra-household conflict during and post-crisis (Friedman and Thomas, 2007; World Bank, 2008a); • But…. • Evidence is generally from middle income Asia and Latin America; current crisis is different – compound nature after food/fuel shocks; More thinking on long-run capabilities and inter-generational aspects?
Hossain et al., (2009) study in 5 countries: • Food: higher proportion of income; less diverse/lower nutritional value, less, women eating least/last; Range of health impacts reported; School absenteeism and dropout, child labour; Intra-household tensions, abandonment of children and elderly and signs of rising social tension; Criminalisation of youth and rising crime. • People’s own crisis indicators? How about children’s? • Changes in prices, reduction in the amount of paid workers; number of vacant dormitories rented for export workers, reduced working hours, termination/broken contracts, lay-offs, returning migration. Evidence on child poverty impacts of the current crisis
2. The crisis in SSA and public budgets Surely low income, subsistence and/or agricultural economies aren’t linked to complex global financial markets? • % banking sector assets held by foreign banks: > 50% = e.g. Mozambique (100%), Uganda (80%), Zambia (77%), Tanzania (66%) Ghana (65%). • Remittances as % GDP: > 2% = e.g. Sierra Leone (9%), Kenya (7%), Nigeria (6%), Uganda (4%); Ethiopia (2%). • Primary commodities as % exports: >80% = e.g. Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan,Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. • Many countries have multiple economic vulnerabilities
Data so far on SSA and outlook • Export earnings have not fallen radically but haven’t grown at pre-crisis rates (exception is oil exporters have big falls) • Large falls in FDI and remittances in many countries but not all; • Significant deceleration in GDP per capita growth rates; • Pressure on public expenditure in some countries immediately, and most in next 2 years. Most striking trend is debt servicing upward trend - large annual increases in debt servicing;
3. Policy responses, social protection, and policy narratives looking ahead • Context • Some expansionary fiscal policy e.g. Zambia; Tanzania; Mozambique; but exception – generally fiscal tightening and likely to continue; (aid under pressure too). • Policy narratives • Shifting ‘conventional wisdom’ on public expenditure towards social protection and ‘graduation’; plenty of evidence that SP reduces child poverty; more pilots emerging in SSA; more resources, more donor support, more domestic support? • Looking ahead • Taking human development to the next dimension(s) - what might ‘human wellbeing’ offer SP?
From human development to ‘human wellbeing’? What a child has; What a child can do with what they have; How a child thinks about what they have and can do.
4. Conclusions • Poverty impacts of previous crises significant for child poverty; Early evidence for current crisis supports this; • SSA connected to crisis but highly nuanced impacts - some countries very badly hit others less so; • Fiscal/aid landscape shifting; thinking about a new policy narrative - from human development to ‘human wellbeing’ - implications for child poverty analysis, inter-generational transmission, policy responses and child-sensitive SP?