CHAPTER 5: THE CASE FOR CASH TRANSFERS FOR OVC IN ZIMBABWE
5.3 THE NATIONAL ACTION PLAN FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN
spend it locally, thereby, ‘stimulating local markets, promoting trade and production, and thus leading to a wider community-level economic benefit.’469
A study comparing the cost of food transfers and cash transfers concluded that the costs of food transfer delivery programme would be almost four times more that the costs of national cash transfer programme.470 Moreover, despite the provision of food to vulnerable families, the problem faced by OVC and their households may still exist since they are not empowered to enable to provide for themselves. Cash transfers, however, may provide capital to these households to engage in income generating projects which may sustain them in the future.
Cash transfers in Zimbabwe can be used as a mechanism towards achieving various instruments which the government signed including the National Action Plan for OVC which is briefly described below.
Based on the discussion above, it can be concluded that cash transfers may be a better option to effectively protect the well being of OVC than the BEAM and the food aid programme.
Social cash transfers can be introduced to replace these two social protection mechanisms.
5.3 THE NATIONAL ACTION PLAN FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE
The NAP for OVC was established to provide psychological and material support and educational assistance to OVC. The NAP for OVC ‘seeks to ensure that OVC are able to access education, food, health services, and birth registration, and are protected from abuse and exploitation through coordinated efforts by the government and civil society….’474 This will be achieved through seven objectives including, increasing new school enrolment while ensuring retention of OVC in primary and secondary schools and increasing access to food and health services, water and sanitation for all OVC.475
It is important to discuss the key institutional players of the NAP for OVC since the researcher is of the view that they could be important players in the introduction and implementation of social cash transfers. The key institutional players for the NAP for OVC start at grassroots level up to national level. The key institutional players of the NAP for OVC are depicted in table 1 below:
Table 1: The Institutional Structure of the NAP for OVC476
INSTITUTIONAL KEY PLAYERS ROLE SECRETARIAT
SERVICES
Community Level Child Protection Committees
Coordinated by the Ward/Village Development Committees/Assemblies chaired by councillors;
Village Development Committees chaired by Village Heads; Representatives from community, traditional leaders and healers, extension workers for the government and NGOs, churches, CBOs, child representative
Activity coordination and OVC identification, implementation, and monitoring
Ward/Village
Development Committees appointed
District Child Protection Committees (DCPC) Coordinated by District Social Services offices, working with LAs, reporting to the RDDCs, chaired by the District Administrators (58 RDCs and 27 Urban Councils). Representatives from line ministries, LAs, NGOs, FBOs, CBOs, traditional leaders, child representatives
Activity coordination, planning, budgeting supervision, and
monitoring and evaluation
Local Authorities with support from DSS (District Secretariat)
474 Mushunje M & Mafico M (2007) ‘Walking the talk: Zimbabwe’s experience in implementing the National Action Plan for orphans and other vulnerable children’ Journal of Social Development in Africa 22 (2) 44.
475 Government of Zimbabwe (note 13 above) 17.
476 Ibid 19.
Provincial Child Protection Committees (PCPCs)
Coordinated by Provincial Social Services Office, reporting to Provincial Development Committees, chaired by Provincial Administrators.
Representatives from line ministries, NGOs, FBOs, private sector, local authorities (LAs), child representatives
Implementation, coordination, and
monitoring and evaluation
Department of Social Services (DSS)
(Provincial Secretariat)
Working Party of Officials (WPO) - 7 government line ministries (MoPSLSW*, MoHCW, MoJLPA**, MoYDGEC***, MoFED****, MoLGPWNH*****, MoESC) - 1 repr from each of the National AIDS Council, UNICEF, Zimbabwe Red Cross Society,
NANGO, private sector
- 2 repr from each of the Local NGOs/CBOs, FBOs, donors (SIDA and USAID)
- 3 repr from International NGOs and 3 child Representatives
Resource mobilisation, implementation, supervision, policy
formulation, and technical back stopping
MoLSW
(National Secretariat)
Social Services Action Committee of the Cabinet
(SSACC)
Cabinet ministers of children’s line ministries, with representatives of rural and urban councils association and National AIDS Council
National coordination mechanism and monitoring of programmes
MoLSW
Cabinet of the Republic of Zimbabwe
Members of Parliament and the Executive
Approves policies and commit the State
Cabinet
*Now split into Ministry of Public Service and Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.
** Now split into Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs and Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs.
*** Now split into Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment and Ministry of Women Affair, Gender and Community Development.
**** Now split into Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Planning and Investment Promotion.
*****Now Split into Ministry of Local Government, Urban and Rural Development and Ministry of National Housing and social Amenities.
The NAP for OVC is an important instrument for the implementation of laws and policies for OVC. It provides for multidisciplinary action in the care and protection of OVC. The NAP for OVC, however, does not make explicit reference to the terms ‘social assistance’ as a strategy for dealing with the OVC problems. There is thus a need to look in-depth at the
programmes and activities proposed within the plan so as to understand how it incorporates social assistance concerns.477 Moreover, it should be noted that the NAP for OVC does not include social cash transfers as a strategy for implementing the goals of the NAP for OVC.
This is not unique to Zimbabwe’s NAP for OVC since only a limited number of NAPs for OVC in Africa incorporate cash transfers as part of their social protection strategies.478 This may be attributed to the fact that cash transfers are a recent phenomenon and were probably not popular as a social protection mechanism when the NAPs for OVC were drafted.479 The failure to specify the social protection mechanisms to achieve the objectives of the NAP for OVC ‘has a danger of leading to inaction whereby NPAs will remain government documents that fulfil their role in terms of rhetoric policy frameworks, but are not operationalised.’480 On a positive note, however, this non-specificity may be interpreted to afford programme designers the discretion to select social protection mechanisms which they feel is the most appropriate to achieve the desired results. It also allows for a collaboration of many social protection mechanisms and the introduction of new ones, like social cash transfers, as long as they achieve the objectives of the NAP for OVC. Thus, the non- specificity of social protection mechanisms, in general, or social cash transfers, in particular, in the NAP for OVC may not necessarily imply that there is no space for such programmes to be pursued.481
Some of the objectives of the NAP for OVC can be achieved through social protection provision in general and cash transfers may particularly be a desirable option.482 Health and education objectives may be achieved through empowering households by providing them with cash transfers to enable children to access these services. Although the NAP for OCV does not in its activities prescribe direct social protection mechanisms, it establishes an institutional structure on which social protection mechanisms could be built. Thus, the institutional framework for the NAP for OVC may be used for the implementation of social cash transfers. Thus, the implementation of the NAP for OVC should give way for the
477 For example, one of the strategies for the NAP for OVC is ‘strengthening community based initiatives and social safety nets.’ This can be interpreted to be referring to social protection.
478 Sebates-Wheeler, R & Pelham, L (2006) Social Protection: How important are the National Plans of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children? UNICEF and Institute of Development Studies 10-11.
479 Ibid 11.
480 Ibid.
481 Ibid.
482 For example, the objectives to increase new school enrolment and retention of OVC while ensuring retention of OVC in primary and secondary schools and increasing access to food and health services, water and
sanitation for all OVC.
introduction of social cash transfers and other social protection mechanisms which may be useful for OVC and their households.