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Over the past two decades many governments of low and middle income countries have started to introduce social protection measures or to extend the coverage and improve the functioning of public social protection systems. These reforms are a "global phenomenon" and can be observed in many African, Asian and Latin American countries. This paper focuses on international determinants for policy change within social protection by assessing the state of the art of both policy diffusion and policy transfer studies. Empirical studies of policy transfer and diffusion in the field of social protection are furthermore assessed in light of the theoretical background.
The paper examines the effectiveness of transgovernmental policy networks as a governance structure for policy diffusion. The analysis is based on a survey including 50 social protection policy maker and technical practitioner who are country delegates to transgovernmental policy networks within the policy area of social protection. The paper provides anecdotal empirical evidence that policy networks contribute to policy diffusion by inducing mutual learning processes.
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.
Nachhaltigkeit aus institutionenökonomischer Perspektive am Beispiel der Schiefergasförderung
(2014)
Over the past two decades many low and middle income countries worldwide have started to extend the coverage and improve the functioning of public social protection systems. The research program on international policy diffusion provides empirical evidence that apart from domestic factors international interdependencies matter as well for national policy change in social protection. However, little is known about the governance structures mediating international policy diffusion in social protection.
I. Einleitung II. Soziale Sicherung als Bestandteil entwicklungspolitischer Agenden – Eine internationale Perspektive III. Internationale Politikdiffusion und nationaler Politikwandel – Konzeptionelle Grundlagen IV. Die Rolle internationaler Politikdiffusion für den Wandel sozialer Sicherungssysteme – Empirische Evidenz V. Schlussfolgerungen
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Poverty Reduction Effect of Social Protection: The Pros and Cons of a Multidisciplinary Approach
(2022)
There is a growing body of knowledge on the complex effects of social protection on poverty in Africa. This article explores the pros and cons of a multidisciplinary approach to studying social protection policies. Our research aimed at studying the interaction between cash transfers and social health protection policies in terms of their impact on inclusive growth in Ghana and Kenya. Also, it explored the policy reform context over time to unravel programme dynamics and outcomes. The analysis combined econometric and qualitative impact assessments with national- and local-level political economic analyses. In particular, dynamic effects and improved understanding of processes are well captured by this approach, thus, pushing the understanding of implementation challenges over and beyond a ‘technological fix,’ as has been argued before by Niño-Zarazúa et al. (World Dev 40:163–176, 2012), However, multidisciplinary research puts considerable demands on data and data handling. Finally, some poverty reduction effects play out over a longer time, requiring longitudinal consistent data that is still scarce.
The cooperation between researchers and practitioners during the different stages of the research process is promoted as it can be of benefit to both society and research supporting processes of ‘transformation’. While acknowledging the important potential of research–practice–collaborations (RPCs), this paper reflects on RPCs from a political-economic perspective to also address potential unintended adverse effects on knowledge generation due to divergent interests, incomplete information or the unequal distribution of resources. Asymmetries between actors may induce distorted and biased knowledge and even help produce or exacerbate existing inequalities. Potential merits and limitations of RPCs, therefore, need to be gauged. Taking RPCs seriously requires paying attention to these possible tensions—both in general and with respect to international development research, in particular: On the one hand, there are attempts to contribute to societal change and ethical concerns of equity at the heart of international development research, and on the other hand, there is the relative risk of encountering asymmetries more likely.
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.
Intersectoral collaborations are an integral component of the prevention and control of diseases in a complex health system. On the one hand, One Health (OH) is promoting the establishment of intersectoral collaborations for prevention at the human-animal-environment interface. On the other hand, operationalising OH can only be realized through intersectoral collaborations.
This work contributes to broadening the knowledge of the process for operationalising OH by analysing the governance structures behind different initiatives that tackle health problems at the human-animal-environment interface. The cases taken as examples for the analysis are the control and response to rabies and avian influenza under “classical OH”, and the management of floods and droughts for insights into “extended OH”. Data from Ghana and India were collected and compared to identify the key elements that enable ISC for OH.
Despite the case studies being heterogeneous in terms of their geographic, economic, social, cultural, and historical contexts, strong similarities were identified on how intersectoral collaborations in OH were initiated, managed, and taken to scale.
The actions documented for rabies prevention and control were historically based on one sector being the leader and implementer of activities, while avian influenza management relied more on intersectoral collaborations with clearly defined sectoral responsibilities. The management of the impact of flood and droughts on health provided a good example of intersectoral collaborations achieved by sectoral integration; however, the human health component was only involved in the response stage in the case of Ghana, while for India, there were broader schemes of intersectoral collaborations for prevention, adaptation, and response concerning climate change and disaster.
Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is a widely applied research approach, combing the efforts of multiple academic disciplines to work on complex problems. Within transdisciplinary research (TDR), non-academic stakeholders participate in the project and offer hands-on experience to the research. These integrative approaches are praised for the ability for addressing ‘wicked problems’ and can lead to new perspectives on relevant contemporary challenges. This working paper is analysing the cooperation and exchange of involved disciplines in the German-Ghanaian interdisciplinary research project Energy-Self-Sufficiency for Health Facilities in Ghana (EnerSHelF). The results are presented in a Collaboration Frequency Network (CFN) as well as qualitatively examined to unravel the level of interaction and perspectives on chances and challenges of IDR and TDR. The analysis shows that disciplinary closeness, data collection and exchange, and individual effort are affecting the level of collaboration among other reasons. Concluding the authors develop recommendations for future IDR and TDR projects.
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.
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.
The transition to sustainable energy systems does not only entail changes to existing technologies or infrastructure. It also involves significant changes in a country's institutional frameworks that are rarely examined. Anchored in institutional analysis, this paper analyses the political economy factors influencing institutional change towards a sustainable energy transition in Ghana, with a particular focus on solar photovoltaics (PVs). The findings indicate that even though progress has been slow moving and incremental, the process of institutional change is cumulative and constitutes a fundamental third-order change. Institutional legacies within the energy sector present strong but not prohibitive barriers to renewable energy adoption. Initially, the relatively homogenous nature of preferences among key actors facilitated the introduction of solar PV. However, conflicting interests among policymakers, who simultaneously support solar PVs and fossil-fuel agendas emerged during a later phase and undermined progress. The declining cost of solar PV systems over time has, nonetheless, provided new momentum for change. Environmental conditions or shocks exogeneous to the reform domain have had mixed effects on Solar PV adoption. While Ghana's numerous power crisis exposed the inadequacies of hydro and thermal sources and created an opportunity for solar PVs, the discovery of oil and gas resources in 2007 significantly slowed change. Although international concerns about climate change and sustainable development have provided some momentum for policy change, perceived injustices in international relations between countries in the Global South and those in the Global North tend to slow the transition process down.
