Urban Social Assistance: Evidence, Challenges and the Way Forward, with Application to Ghana
journal contribution
posted on 2024-10-04, 13:37authored byJose Cuesta, Stephen Devereux, Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, Jaideep Gupte, Luigi Peter Ragno, Keetie Roelen, Rachel Sabates-Wheeler, Tayllor Spadafora
Motivation: Urban areas are growing as is urban poverty, yet few countries
have developed comprehensive programmes for social assistance in
urban areas. Those programmes that exist, moreover, are often extensions
or duplicates of rural schemes. Urban social protection needs to reflect the
distinct characteristics and vulnerabilities of the urban poor, especially that
they usually work in informal activities and they face higher living costs
than rural dwellers.
Purpose: This article addresses two questions: what is the current evidence
on effective social assistance programmes in urban areas? How can such
programmes be designed and implemented in practice? The article surveys
the challenges of designing social assistance programmes in urban areas,
focusing on specific urban vulnerabilities, targeting the urban poor, and
setting appropriate payments.
Approach and methods: Existing evidence on programmes for urban social
assistance, including cases from seven countries, are reviewed. Issues
are examined in detail for Ghana, a rapidly urbanizing country.
Findings: Ghana’s flagship social assistance programme, Livelihood
Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), that operates largely in rural
areas, can and should be adjusted to urban areas. Registration by using
community leaders is less effective in urban than rural areas. Instead, advertising,
(social) media, direct text messaging, and identification through
local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) would be better options.
Targeting can be improved by developing an urban-specific proxy means
test. Cash benefits should be increased, then adjusted regularly to counter
inflation. These benefits should possibly be accompanied by subsidies for
utilities and services.
Policy implications: Several principles to consider when designing urban
social assistance emerge. Benefit levels should reflect higher living costs
in urban areas and respond to inflation, especially for food and other necessities.
Urban social assistance should go beyond cash transfers to focus on
generating jobs (especially for young people and women), and to ensure
basic services such as health care reach the urban poor, through subsidies,
vouchers, or case management. Urban contexts also offer more opportunities
to deliver and target social assistance through digital technologies such
as mobile phones and automatic teller machines (ATM).
Funding
Default funder
History
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons
Citation
Cuesta, J.; Devereux S.; Abdulai A-G.; Gupte, J.; Ragno, L.P.; Roelen, K.; Sabates-Wheeler, R. and Spadafora, T. (2020) Urban Social Assistance: Evidence, Challenges and the Way Forward, with Application to Ghana. Dev Policy Rev. 2020;00:1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12513