The Cash Dividend Garcia, Marito; Moore, Charity M. T
2012, 2011, 02-21-2012, 20120101
eBook, Book
Open access
The Cash Dividend: The Rise of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa assimilates results of a thorough review of the recent use of cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing from ...sources including program documentation, policy papers, peer-reviewed publications, and interviews, it paints a picture of the evolution and current state of cash transfers, which include unconditional and conditional cash transfers and emergency- and development-focused transfers. It presents analysis from data collected and describes broad trends in design features and implementation, including objectives, targeting, benefits, payment mechanisms, conditions, monitoring, evaluation, institutional location, program costs, and more. It also addresses political economy issues relevant to cash transfer programs, discusses the challenges to implementing cash transfer programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, and highlights lessons learned from existing African cash transfer programs. The comprehensive nature of the review, and its thorough analysis of previously unassimilated data, fills a gap in knowledge related to cash transfer programs in the region. The book is expected to benefit the donor community and domestic policymakers involved in cash transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa, guiding both program design and future research. It will help shift the debate on cash transfers in Africa from whether they are possible to how they can best be implemented.
Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge compiles the latest data and viewpoints on the state of Sub-Saharan Africa's children. Topics covered include the rationale for investing in young children, policy ...trends in early childhood development (ECD), historical perspectives of ECD in Sub-Saharan Africa including indigenous approaches, new threats from HIV/AIDS, and the importance of fathers in children's lives. The book also addresses policy development and ECD implementation issues; presents the ECD programming experience in several countries, highlighting best practices and challenges; and evaluates the impact of ECD programs in a number of countries.
The authors examine the challenges facing Africa's youth in their transition from school to working life, and propose a strategy for meeting these challenges. Topics covered include the effect of ...education on employment and income, broadening employment opportunities, and enhancing youth capabilities. Labor is the most abundant asset of poor households in Africa. Developing this asset is therefore essential to helping households move out of poverty. Strengthening the work force can also improve the investment climate, increase economic growth, and prevent instability and violence, particularly in postconflict situations, where large numbers of unemployed youth threaten security.
Ethiopia has made major strides in improving its human development indicators in the past 15 years, achieving significant increases in the coverage of basic education and health services in a short ...period of time. Imrovements took place during a period of massive decentralization of fiscal resources, to the regions in 1994 and to woredas in 2002-03. The devolutionof power and resources from the federal and regional governments to woredas appears to have improved the delivery of basic services. Surveys of beneficiaries reveal that they perceive that service coverage and quality have improved. Beneficiary satisfaction has increased markedly in education, and less conspicuously in water and health services. In the south, the decentralization to woredas 2002-03 tended to narrow differences in per capita expenditures on education and health across woredas. Decentralization disproportionately favored woredas that are remote (more than 50 kilometers from a zonal capital), food-insecure, and pastoral, suggesting that decentralization has been ppro-poor. Decentralization also narrowed the gap in educational outcomes between disadvantaged and better-off woredas, especially in the south. Pastoral, food-insecure, and remote woredas gained in terms of the educational outcomes examined (gross enrollment rates, grade 8 examination pass rates, repetition rates, pupil-teacher ratios, and teacher-section ratios).
Early childhood, from birth through school entry, was largely invisible worldwide as a policy concern for much of the twentieth century. Children, in the eyes of most countries, were 'appendages' of ...their parents or simply embedded in the larger family structure. The child did not emerge as a separate social entity until school age (typically six or seven). 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge: Early Childhood Care and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa' focuses on the 130 million children south of the Sahel in this 0-6 age group.This book, the first of its kind, presents a balanced collection of articles written by African and non-African authors ranging from field practitioners to academicians and from members of government organizations to those of nongovernmental and local organizations. 'Africa's Future, Africa's Challenge' compiles the latest data and viewpoints on the state of Sub-Saharan Africa's children. Topics covered include the rationale for investing in young children, policy trends in early childhood development (ECD), historical perspectives of ECD in Sub-Saharan Africa including indigenous approaches, new threats from HIV/AIDS, and the importance of fathers in children's lives. The book also addresses policy development and ECD implementation issues; presents the ECD programming experience in several countries, highlighting best practices and challenges; and evaluates the impact of ECD programs in a number of countries.
According to many descriptive accounts, the orphan crisis in Africa has assumed alarming proportions, largely due to AIDS-related deaths. Using household panel data from Uganda to confirm this and ...assess the impact on affected households and children, we find that (a) receiving a foster child leads to a significant reduction of investment; (b) initial disadvantages in foster children’s access to education were largely eliminated by the introduction of a program of Universal Primary Education; and (c) new inequalities have emerged in foster children’s access to health services. Even though this suggests that specific programs could help to alleviate some of the negative impacts of orphanhood, the policy response in many African countries has remained piecemeal. We use data from existing programs to estimate the cost of a concerted policy response and highlight implications for further research.
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