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While social protection programmes have multiplied over the last two decades across sub-Saharan Africa, these coexist alongside humanitarian assistance in many places, calling for better integration of assistance delivered through the two channels. Progress on this front is hampered by limited evidence of whether and how these historically siloed sectors can work together. Using quantitative and qualitative data from districts covered by Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) and where humanitarian food assistance (HFA) was delivered, we assess differences in targeting and transfer values. We find that the PSNP and HFA were targeted to households with different characteristics. PSNP transfers did, on average, reach those households that were chronically food insecure. HFA, while delivered through the PSNP systems, was targeted to households that were acutely vulnerable. These are promising findings as they suggest that social protection systems are able to effectively deliver a continuum of support in response to different types of vulnerability and risk. On transfer values, we find that the value of PSNP transfers is greater than those for HFA. One reason for this may be due to the social pressure on local officials to distribute support more widely across a drought-affected population when faced with acute needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is framed by the tension between a substantial universalising framework of global instruments on workers' rights and child labour on one hand, and their outsourced implementation through the social policy enclaves of transnational corporations on the other hand. It uses the concept of 'social policy enclaves' to explore this tension and how it might be resolved to the benefit of children who work in African agriculture. To do this, the article steps back from dominant discourses around child labour, and examines how a re-framing of children's involvement in African agriculture, from labour to work, might enhance understanding of the forms, prevalence, drivers and dynamics of their involvement in work that is harmful. A deeper understanding of these issues should help to inform a revitalised universal approach to social policy in respect to children's work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades national and other large‐scale social assistance programmes have multiplied across sub‐Saharan Africa. These programmes require considerable human resource capacity, institutional arrangements and systems of identifying eligible people, as well as delivery structures and mechanisms. Several countries have sought to extend programmes to areas at the margins of state power where governance and administration reflect negotiated arrangements involving a range of state and non‐state and informal actors. This includes Ethiopia, where the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) has expanded across the country's lowland Afar and Somali regions. This article examines evidence concerning the targeting of PSNP transfers in these predominantly pastoral and agro‐pastoral regions. While quantitative evidence indicates that the wealthy are as likely to be programme beneficiaries as the poorest, despite investments in establishing and providing training for local‐level targeting structures, local perspectives are that the right households are targeted. The authors explain this apparent paradox in relation to distributional politics nested within clan‐based social networks in the context of limited statehood. Formal systems of provisioning social assistance are negotiated and reconfigured, in acceptable ways, through local agency. The PSNP lowland experience calls into question the limits of 'technocratic approaches' and underscores the need to understand social norms and preferences in design and implementation of social assistance programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been minimal consideration of the implications of demographic and social shifts for future old-age social protection needs and programming in sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper we address this gap, building on the example of Rwanda. We utilise mixed-methods research to show that aggregate national statistics mask many of the complex vulnerabilities that older people face. These, combined with our projections of changes in Rwanda's economy, suggest an expanding unmet need for social protection among Rwanda's older population. A universal social pension is one affordable way to respond to this gap in provision both now and in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper takes as a starting point the proposition that social protection interventions involving food can be used to promote transformational change in family farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose is to highlight the complexity of pathways to agricultural transformation associated with the seemingly simple idea of home-grown school feeding (HGSF), an idea that is increasingly held up as “win–win”. By reviewing the HGSF literature and the main theories underpinning it – structured demand, localism, family farmer development – we expose areas of inconsistency across the literature and programmes as well as possible tensions that may arise in attempting to pursue both market and social objectives in the same initiative. The arguments presented herein aim to provide a basis for moving towards clarity on (1) a theory of change for HGSF programmes; (2) the conditions under which HGSF programmes are more able to yield positive agricultural development outcomes and; (3) an agenda for moving forward on research and impact evaluation. This research agenda also speaks more broadly to important under-researched areas within the general social protection and agricultural development discourse. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]