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The paper contributes to the debate on the political economy of implementation of propoor social policy. It argues for a broadening of the debate, which is dominated by technocratic arguments, emphasizing the lack of financial resources, technology or skills as the major barriers for effective implementation. Describing the dynamic interplay of ‘formal’ operational programme structures and ‘informal’ traditional institutions in delivering the CT-OVC – the largest and oldest cash transfer programme in Kenya – it argues for the need to look more closely into the local political economy as an important mediating arena for implementing social policies. Implementation is heavily contingent upon the local social, political and institutional context that influences and shapes its outcomes. These processes are highly dynamic and ambivalent evolving between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ structures and institutions. They may change over time and place, challenging the implicit assumption that programmes are evenly implemented across geographic and political entities.
This paper analyzes the complex effects and risks of social protection programmes in Ghana and Kenya on poor people’s human wellbeing, voice and empowerment and interactions with the social protection regulatory framework and policy instruments. For this purpose, it adopts a comprehensive Inclusive Development framework to systematically explore the complex effects of cash transfers and health insurance at the individual, household and community level. The findings highlight the positive provisionary and preventive effects of social protection, but also illustrate that the poorest are still excluded and that promotive effects, in the form of enhanced productivity, manifest themselves mainly for the people who are less resource poor. They can build more effectively upon an existing asset base, capabilities, power and social relations to counter the exclusionary mechanisms of the system, address inequity concerns and offset the transaction costs of accessing and benefitting from social protection. The inclusive development framework enables to lay these complex effects and interactions bear, and points to areas that require more longitudinal and mixed methodology research.
Political economic analyses of recent social protection reforms in Asian, African or Latin American countries have increased throughout the last few years. Yet, most contributions focus on one social protection mechanism only and do not provide a comparative approach across policy areas. In addition, most studies are empirical studies, with no or very limited theoretical linkages. The paper aims to explain multiple trajectories of social protection reform processes looking at cash transfers and social health protection policies in Kenya. It develops a taxonomy and suggest a conceptual framework to assess and explain reform dynamics across different social protection pillars. In order to allow for a more differentiated typology and enable us to understand different reform dynamics, the article uses the approach on gradual institutional change. While existing approaches to institutional change mostly focus on institutional change prompted by exogenous shocks or environmental shifts, this approach takes account of both, exogenous and endogenous sources of change.
The article contributes to understanding the political economy of implementation of social protection programmes at local level. Current debates are dominated by technocratic arguments, emphasizing the lack of financial resources, technology or skills as major barriers for effective implementation. Describing how chiefs, assistant-chiefs and community elders are routinely at the centre stage of core implementation processes, including targeting, enrolment, delivery, monitoring, awareness and information, data collection or grievance and redress, this study on Kenya argues for the need to look more closely into the local political economy as an important mediating arena for implementing social policies. Implementation is heavily contingent upon the local social, political and institutional context that influences and shapes its outcomes. These processes are ambivalent involving multiple forms of interactions between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ institutional structures, which may support initial policy objectives or induce policy outcomes substantially diverging from intended policy objectives.
In the last two decades, studies that analyse the political economy of sustainable energy transitions have increasingly become available. Yet very few attempts have been made to synthesize the factors discussed in the growing literature. This paper reviews the extant empirical literature on the political economy of sustainable energy transitions. Using a well-defined search strategy, a total of 36 empirical contributions covering the period 2008 to 2022 are reviewed full text. Overall, the findings highlight the role of vested interest, advocacy coalitions and green constituencies, path dependency, external shocks, policy and institutional environment, political institutions and fossil fuel resource endowments as major political economy factors influencing sustainable energy transitions across both high income countries, and low and middle income countries. In addition, the paper highlights and discusses some critical knowledge gaps in the existing literature and provides suggestions for a future research agenda.
Public preferences
(2021)
For reforms to be acceptable and sustainable in the long run, they should be aligned with public preferences. ‘Preferences’ is a technical term used in social sciences or humanities including for example disciplines such as economics, philosophy or psychology. Broadly speaking, preferences refer to an individual’s judgements on liking one alternative more than others. More specifically, preferences are ‘subjective comparative evaluations, in the form of “Agent prefers X to Y”’ (Hansson and Grüne-Yanoff 2018). Here, we are particularly interested in people’s policy preferences concerning social protection, an area which deserves more attention in policy debates and research.
Intention: Within the research project EnerSHelF (Energy-Self-Sufficiency for Health Facilities in Ghana), i. a. energy-meteorological and load-related measurement data are collected, for which an overview of the availability is to be presented on a poster.
Context: In Ghana, the total electricity consumed has almost doubled between 2008 and 2018 according to the Energy Commission of Ghana. This goes along with an unstable power grid, resulting in power outages whenever electricity consumption peaks. The blackouts called "dumsor" in Ghana, pose a severe burden to the healthcare sector. Innovative solutions are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy and health access.
Background:
Access to electricity is one of the enabling factors for healthcare service provision. From the sustainable development perspective, an essential requirement for improving health and caring for our environment is to assure that health facilities have sufficient and reliable access to the supply of clean and sustainable energy. The objective of this work is to investigate the users’ perceptions of electricity needs and electricity sources and the way those influence different attributes and their relevance for the diffusion of renewable electricity systems in healthcare facilities.
Methods:
To identify preferences and choices, Stated Choice modelling was applied as the use of solar PV systems in health facilities is not widespread in Ghana. This method allows to present the respondents with hypothetical options, which have attributes close to the real world. Four attributes were considered, namely electricity system configuration, initial investment cost, monthly costs, and improvements to the reliability of the electricity supply.
Results:
The largest share of the 200 health facilities interviewed reported services provision as outpatient treatment, provision of maternity services and family planning, which are relatively low electricity-intensive services. However, there was a general perception that increased reliability on the electricity supply can improve the health service provision and operation of the facilities. Moreover, despite that preferences towards the solar systems, the initial investment costs of the solar systems is still perceived as preventing the adoption of this technology
Conclusion:
From this study we can conclude that health facilities in Ghana rely greatly on the national supply which has issues with reliability, compromising the delivery of healthcare services. However, the adoption of alternative electricity technologies based on renewable sources is not likely to occur at the facility level without the engagement of other actors that can help bridging the barriers for adoption, as initial investment costs.
Social protection refers to the entire system of protective measures that assist individuals, households, and communities to better manage risks and economic shocks and that provide support to the critically vulnerable. Among the major risks covered are illness, accident, death, unemployment, or old age. Social protection includes public as well as private approaches.