Research

Current and recent research

The South African Child Support Grant Impact Assessment: Evidence from a survey of children, adolescents and their households

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This study was commissioned and funded by the Department of Social Development (DSD), the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) South Africa. The study was carried out by the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI) in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), as part of a larger project partnership including the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), Oxford Policy Management (OPM), Reform Development Consulting (RDC) and Take Note Trading (TNT). This research project is part of a multi-year integrated qualitative and quantitative impact assessment commissioned by the Department of Social Development, the South African Social Security Agency and UNICEF South Africa.

Commissioned by Department for Social Development (DSD)

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Social Protection and Labour Project

Social protection policies aim at reducing social and economic risk and vulnerability and alleviating extreme poverty and deprivation, taking into account different risks and vulnerabilities throughout the lifecycle. FAO’s work on decent rural employment focuses on supporting countries to formulate and implement policies, strategies and programmes that generate greater opportunities for the rural poor to access decent farm and non-farm employment. This project explores the synergies and complementarities between the decent rural employment (DRE) and the social protection agenda. By strengthening social protection and decent rural employment links, social protection can achieve its main role in effectively reducing vulnerability, poverty, and social exclusion and contributing to facilitating access to more and better rural jobs. Research will also identify policy recommendations on how to strengthen DRE and social protection links in programme design and policy planning.In partnership with FAO.

The study to explore options and make recommendations for the vertical expansion for the Child Support Grant

The South African Department of Social Development (DSD) has commissioned EPRI to conduct an an initial impact evaluation of the Child Support Grant over the years; an analysis of the benefits of extending the grant to unemployed youth older than 18 and less than 25; and an optimization of the correct amount needed to keep the youth out of poverty, but an amount which will not create dependence on government funds. The DSD was motivated by studies of South Africa’s Child Support Grant which provide ample evidence of its ability to tackle poverty and vulnerability, provide care and support to those affected by HIV and AIDS, promote developmental outcomes and reduce the risky behaviours that leave adolescents vulnerable to HIV infection.  However, the DSD realised that the main challenge for child-sensitive social protection in South Africa is ensuring universal access to the Child Support Grant, particularly for the most excluded groups—infants and adolescents.  These two groups are excluded for different reasons, but tackling the diverse barriers to coverage can substantially improve the effectiveness of the Child Support Grant. Therefore, the project aims to conduct a feasibility analysis of the vertical expansion of South Africa’s Child Support Grant and will identify and analyse both how specific additional benefits as well as additional support options will meet the needs of children over their early life course.

Commissioned by Department for Social Development (DSD)

A Feasibility Assessment of Options to Strengthen the Developmental Impact of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) Social Grants Payment System

The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) seeks to improve the quality of social security service delivery, which ensures for millions of poor South Africans an engagement in the country’s economy. Social grants beneficiaries are amongst the poorest of the poor in South Africa and their pursuit of social justice is only enhanced through support. Building on the payment accomplishment, SASSA now, in pursuit of its vision, wants to provide a more comprehensive basket of social security services and transactional benefits.The Ford Foundation and SASSA have contracted EPRI to carry out a feasibility study on modalities that can be established through social grant payment systems to help leverage the immense buying power of the poor and offer them additional benefit accumulation through transaction interactions. EPRI has been commissioned to conduct research towards exploring the extent to which SASSA’s payment could be put use in increasing the value of the social grants through a range of measures that would encompass benefit accumulation through transactional interactions. These would involve rewards, discounts, loyalty programmes, dividends on savings or gradual social grants withdrawals, and other potential benefits from more regular use of the financial products.

In partnership with the Ford Foundation and SASSA.

Cash Transfer Programme for Girls’ Education in Niger and Sokoto States, Nigeria

Girls’ education is seen to be among the best long term development investments a country can make to promote political stability and economic growth. There is a causal link between the level of completed education and a girl’s higher future income, lower prevalence of child exploitation, a higher median age of partnership and subsequent first pregnancies, and lower rates of disease incidence. Despite national attempts to promote the empowerment of women, Nigeria continues to have significant gender disparity. For instance, men are 3 times more likely to secure a job in the formal sector, and, while women make up 60-79 percent of the rural labour force, women are 5 times less likely to own land. This absence of gender parity is also reflected in education. On a national level, girls are still 5 percent less likely to be enrolled in primary school than boys with only 58 percent of girls attending primary school in 2010. Moreover, there is an even more gender-unequal picture when focussing on the Northern states, with 13 out of 19 Northern states falling below the national average and female enrolment rates in some states being as low as 16 percent.

UNICEF Nigeria has commissioned EPRI to provide technical assistance to the states of Niger and Sokoto in the design and implementation of a cash transfer programme geared towards enhancing girls’ participation in basic education. The two-year pilot project, titled EduGATE, provides a cash transfer to all age-eligible girls in a school’s catchment area, along with regular community sensitization activities to jointly promote and measure education outcomes.EPRI’s role in providing technical assistance includes the presentation of the final cash transfer design for each state, the provision of a full operational framework including an implementation strategy, operational manual, and technical documents for each actor and project stage. Additionally, EPRI is responsible for ongoing capacity building strategies that integrate advocacy, resource preparation, and delivery of a scalable management information system (MIS).

Commissioned by UNICEF Nigeria.

Best Practices in Institutional Savings-Led Microfinance for OVC Populations

EPRI is working with the SEEP Network to provide an in-depth examination into the how the institutional savings-led microfinance model can contribute to core HIV outcomes and broader economic strengthening outcomes, illuminating best practices. The project identifies the gaps in the knowledge base that FHI360 can address in order to produce robust evidence to support the design, advocacy and implementation of appropriate OVC-sensitive microfinance interventions. The project’s working outputs will draw from this gap analysis and utilise qualitative and quantitative work to recommend practical and actionable options that maximise reach and impact of microfinance to OVC.In partnership with the SEEP Network.

The State of Microinsurance: Evidence on the potential of microinsurance to support orphans and vulnerable children (OVC)

EPRI is engaged is an assessment of microinsurance as part of a larger effort with ASPIRES (Accelerating Strategies for Practical Innovation and Research in Economic Strengthening). ASPIRES support evidence-based, gender sensitive programming to improve the economic security and improve health outcomes of families and children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, as well as other high risk of acquiring HIV. As part of ASPIRES ongoing efforts, EPRI is exploring the potential of microinsurance to protect and promote the lifecycle of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).The project entails an initial report on the state of microinsurance for OVC which will serve as a base to identify knowledge gaps which will be addressed in four subsequent technical guidance briefs. Additionally, two webinars will be organized to disseminate the project’s progress to the wider audience. The final deliverable is a report summarizing the acquired knowledge over the duration of the project.

In partnership with ASPIRES.

Implementation Evaluation of the Expanded Public Works Programme Social Sector

In the latter half of 2014, EPRI will conduct an Implementation Evaluation of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Social Sector. The evaluation is commissioned by the South African Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) and the Department of Social Development.Whereas public works programmes typically focus on constructing or maintaining infrastructure, the South African EPWP includes programmes in the Infrastructure sector as well as the Economic, Environmental, Non-State and Social sectors. Social Sector programmes are implemented by several governmental departments and coordinated by the sector lead department, the Department of Social Development (see http://www.epwp.gov.za/sector_social.html).EPRI will conduct qualitative fieldwork in five of South Africa’s nine provinces and will focus on five Social Sector Programmes: Home Community Based Care, Early Childhood Development, National School Nutrition Programme, Mass Participation Programme, and Community Based Crime Prevention Projects. The focus will be on Phase Two of EPWP Social Sector, which spanned 2009-2014. In order to inform government’s plans for significant scale-up of Social Sector programmes in Phase Three, this implementation evaluation will aim to answer the following questions:

1. How  effective  have  been  the  implementation  mechanisms  of  the  EPWP  Social Sector?
2. What  is  the  likelihood  that  EPWP  Social  Sector  Phase  Two  will  achieve  its outcomes and impacts?
3. Is the design of the EPWP Social Sector appropriate to meet its intended outputs and outcomes?
4. What  opportunities  exist  for  expanding  the  EPWP  Social  Sector,  both  from existing  and  new  social  sector  programmes,  and  for  which  category  of participants?
5. What  are  the  lessons  and  opportunities  that  should  guide  scale  up  to  Phase three?

This project is in the process of appointing a research assistant. If you are interested, contact Cara Meintjes at cara@epri.org.za.

A non-experimental evaluation of the Child Support Grant

As the country’s largest social transfer programme, the Child Support Grant (CSG) provides cash transfers to caregivers of almost 10 million children in South Africa. Past studies have shown that children who receive the CSG have had increased school attendance and lower instances of child hunger. However, evidence gaps remain, in particular with regard to the grant’s impacts on adolescents; how the timing, dosage and duration of CSG receipt impact the development of children and households; and how the impact of enrolment varies among different children in the programme.

This non-experimental evaluation of the Child Support Grant aims to further evaluate the impact of the CSG, and to improve and inform CSG policy design and implementation through an in-depth analysis of the CSG and its impact on South African families. The evaluation uses a quasi-experimental, mixed methods approach with four key questions that seek to understand the practice and policy issues around the CSG: How has early versus late enrollment affected the well-being and cognitive development of children? How are critical life course events of adolescents affected by the extension of the CSG? What is the impact of the CSG on recipient households? And what conditions determine and influence access to the CSG?

In partnership with the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), the International Food Policy Research Institute(IFPRI), Oxford Policy Management (OPM), Reform Development Consulting (RDC) and Take Note Trading (TNT). Commissioned by the Department for Social Development (DSD), in partnership with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and UNICEF.