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My thanks again to everyone who contributed to a stimulating debate over the past ten days. Apart from adding diverse opinions and useful information to the discussion, I have also learned a great deal and will reflect some of your contributions in revising the Theme Paper. Some points that were made reflect errors of fact or interpretation in the Theme Paper (for instance, I did not know that Zimbabwe has a Poverty Reduction Strategy; if someone out there has an electronic copy or could advise me how to obtain a hard copy I'd be very grateful). Other issues that came up are inadequately addressed in the Theme Paper because they are inadequately addressed in the empirical and policy literatures; these include:

• the neglect of urban vulnerability, especially in the context of HIV/AIDS;
• the need to look at gender as much more than a set of 'vulnerable groups';
• the importance of public actors (governments, donors) working together with private and informal actors (communities, CBOs and NGOs including faith-based organisations) to deliver effective social protection.
• the need to spell out the positive synergies between social protection and pro-poor economic growth.

By raising these issues and thinking about how to take them forward, I believe this e-forum has made a useful and potentially important contribution to the debate on social protection in southern Africa. Thanks to you all, and goodbye for now.

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Michael Drinkwater

On the second subject, urban vulnerability, this is another issue, we have looked at in different programs across the region. The 'urban bias' paradigm still dominates comparisons between urban and rural vulnerability and in a way is frustrating for two reasons. One is that it is not straightforward to compare urban and rural vulnerability (eg through the use of the same poverty line), because of the different factors that influence urban vulnerability, especially environmental health factors, and the higher costs of urban survival. Two, is the fact that most growth in the region is urban driven and urban areas offer opportunites that rural areas do not. A country like Malawi, for instance, desperately needs urbanization for example, since the land cannot support the bulk of the country's population. At present, even though, the population is over 85% 'rural', the majority of the rural poor do not derive their food and income directly from agricultural production. Yet, as they seek to diversify their production activities, they are constrained by the limited size of markets and demand for new services, in villages, which even when large, do not exceed a few thousand people. Urban multiplier effects are much greater. But if urban areas offer greater opportunities, there are vulnerability issues which need addressing, since the social and economic consequences are significant if they are not. The Copperbelt of Zambia has a net outflow of people at present, possibly the only urban area in the region where the demographics are negative. Zimbabwe's urban population at present, is hugely vulnerable, as rocket high inflation and huge shortages have relegated almost any Zimbabwe $ wage to meaningless value. A social policy advisor in the Zimbabwe government recently told me she 'lies awake at nights' wondering how she will feed her family the next day.

One aspect of urban vulnerability, is that economic and infrastructural policies, rarely favour the informal sector, even if in cities like Lusaka, more than 90% of urban employment is in this sector. In a densely populated city like Luanda, with a population of over 3 million, the situation is even worse, where current infrastructural strategies almost ignore the existence of the large informal settlement/ sector populations - large new water pipelines, en route to new middle and upper class suburbs still under construction, cutting straight through heavily populated bairros where water is delivered by tankers at high prices. 'Social protection' in these areas, means ways of facilitating the flourishing of the informal sector, especially with more enlightened and appropriate infrastructural and economic policies. In this area, as was done in Zambia, post the 1992 drought, urban cash for work schemes can work, but should also be connected, as in rural areas, to asset building strategies, such as business literacy and savings schemes. But in urban areas, there are more opportunities, and it is easier to seize them, if people are given the chance. In Zimbabwe, urban social protection would require kinds of voucher schemes right now since people cannot access basic foodstuffs at prices they can afford, but in many cities just getting municipal police and regulations off people's backs can help a great deal, in the creation of environments that enable rather than constrain the flowering of economic opportunity. Since significant opportunity lies in addressing environmental health issues of water, sanitation, refuse and poor drainage, in such circumstances, and with appropriate local decision making, these are likely to be improved too.

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Ina Mentz

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My main point at this late stage would be to support the idea of a well-supported national food (or social, even?) security agency which can take the lead in addressing the fluctuating needs of the destitute and most vulnerable. Such a body needs to be aimed at tackling a number of institutional constraints affecting effectiveness of programmes to date, including: 1) lack of coordination and coherence amongst government departments and donors; 2) an unnecessarily narrow and rigid view of social protection: I am one of those who argues for an inclusive concept embracing 'social assistance' and 'social insurance', and flexibility to include many alternative combinations of targeting mechanisms (none, geographical, administrative, community, self), forms of transfer (cash, food, agricultural inputs, housing, fuel, vouchers etc.) and terms of transfer (free distribution, price subsidies, credit arrangements, deferred payment) which meet group and time-specific needs for 'hand-outs' or 'hand-ups'; 3) short-term funding and staffing horizons which limit national capacity to experiment and learn lessons; 4) limited capacity to engage effectively with local agencies, whether decentralised government structures or community-based organisations, and understand local contexts, sources of vulnerability and priorities; 5) limited capacity to adapt to changing conditions including shocks causing inter-annual changes in entitlements and longer-term stresses such as HIV/AIDS, market failures etc.

The problem with flexibility and responsiveness to context - and this echoes debates about synergies between different objectives in disaster response - is that it requires a level of institutional capacity and integrity which is often absent. Long-term donor commitment to building such capacity will be required, alongside similar levels of commitment to resourcing actual social protection programmes.

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Stephen Devereux

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Although donors/UN are now policing their activities a whole lot better than they did 10 years ago, there is still an awful lot of money wasted and /or misused through inappropriate projects and interventions - a national agency could do immense good through assessing the real needs and ensuring that interventions will meet those needs.

When a crisis occurs all manner of agencies move in with little coordination and cooperation - after the 3+ years of Zimbabwe's current crisis we still have organisations who refuse to communicate their intentions and perpetuate the idea of "turf protection" - one area traditionally marginal receiving the attention of too many agencies whilst other areas not so well known completely neglected.

Such an agency could also take on the task of on-going monitoring of the situation, sounding early warnings, disseminating information, etc - again independent and apolitical so as to encourage long term inputs for addressing the real needs.

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I've been travelling and so haven't had the opportunity to comment easily on this or the earlier discussions. However I would like to make a few comments on this theme. Social protection vs economic growth. Both the theme paper and the comments from yesterday (the Malawi Minister of Finance) point to people often seeing these two as contradictory goals, ie if one spends money on social protection it is money diverted from economic growth. I think that a) this is an erroneous way of looking at the choice, and b) there isn't a choice any longer: social protection measures have to be supported. As the theme paper also points out there are two categories for people whom social protection are needed, simply put as the more or less able. In looking at the issue of what measures, a starting assumption for countries like Malawi, Lesotho, and probably Zimbabwe right now, is that rural livelihoods of the poor have essentially become unviable without ongoing support. In Malawi, for instance, since the phasing out of the government parastatal organisations supporting agriculture, and hence de facto state subsidies of small-scale production, donor input and consumption subsidies have in effect replaced these. Input subsidy schemes have happened in 6 seasons since 1992/93, and two of the recent seasons they didn't happen produced food shortages.In addition, public works programs supported by MASAF have occurred in many dry seasons. Not withstanding these subsidies, social economic differentiation has grown since the advent of structural adjustment programs, and accelerated since the mid-1990s. This has occurred in Zambia and Malawi, and no doubt in other countries too. In Zambia, and countries like Mozambique, geographic differentiation has also grown, with outlying regions becoming more worse off. In the face of all this, social protection schemes are essential, but unlike many in the past, should be directly linked to asset creation, which would make them also promotive of economic growth. In Malawi, the households from which (mainly) women had participated in a CARE cash-for-work program that not only trained contract associations to maintain portions of roads, but also trained the women in financial and business literacy skills and had a savings element as part of the cash-for-work, were generally amongst the most food secure households during the recent food shortages, and have also, for instance, been looking after higher numbers of orphans than other households. This kind of safety net program builds both individual and community assets, as well as promotes economic diversification (since most of the activities engaged in are off-farm). Without asset building social protection strategies of this nature, implemented on a large scale, it is hard to see how a reversal of the current trends towards the growing impoverishment of rural populations will occur. It won't happen with more of the same market-oriented production strategies that support mainly those that are already better off, coupled with safety net strategies that function as hand out schemes only. Food security agencies. There appears to be two components to this issue: agencies that have a responsibility for ensuring that there are physical food reserves stocks available, and others that have more concern for the access to food of the food insecure. In Southern Africa, agencies responsible for maintaining physical food reserves have a poor record for accountability and transparency. Nevertheless there role appears important. I was in Niger recently and was interested to see that a more successful scheme of maintaining physical reserves appears to exist in the Sahel, though I'm afraid since that wasn't the principal purpose of my visit, I won't comment here on the why. In terms of having something such as a ministry responsible for protecting people's right to food (ie a food security ministry), in terms of the comments above, its value would only be if it actively saw its role in the 'promotion' of food security capacity, and thus perhaps having a responsibility for the kind of asset building social protection schemes referred to above. Nevertheless, the more bureaucratised the approach to this becomes, the less it will succeed. Link between decentralisation, social protection and economic development. The earlier paper by Frank Ellis pointed to the danger of decentralisation strategies that effectively lead to greater levels of rent seeking by district agencies which have new authorities and limited finances. One problem with most decentralisation strategies is that they focus on the role of local government to provide services, rather than stimulate economic development. This plus the fact that rarely do such strategies focus from the word go on how to also develop the ability of the citizenry to hold these structures accountable at their different levels. These different strands need more bringing together. For example, in Malawi social safety net schemes implemented through MASAF, are also implemented through the district councils, ie MASAF supports the councils. These schemes conventionally have not been envisaged as having a role to play in supporting economic development in any serious way. But if these schemes can be seen more as being responsible for asset generation at different levels, as well as the development of accountability mechanisms (such as the use of community scorecards that ranks the quality of service provision), then they might start to have an impact that will make a longer term difference. There are plenty of issues obviously, but this is the kind of strategy linkage we are starting to look at as an organisation, in the belief that fundamentally different kinds of strategies are needed to reverse current trends - and of course, this kind of strategy talked about here, is in only one area of many that are required.

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1. In his book 'Handbook on How to Make $100,000 Farming 25 Acres' Booker T. Whatley (Tuskegee University) showed American farmers how to make a lot of money from a small farm. How can Dr. Whatley's principals be used in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or Zimbabwe?

2. Can farmers in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or Zimbabwe make a living
growing 'Desert Melons'? (seeds available from Native Seed Search)

3. A schoolteacher in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or Zimbabwe wants to show his students the economic advantageous of growing fruit. What trees should he plant on a half acre and where should he get the nursery stock or seeds? What other supplies should he purchase? (See my paper "Tropical Fruit Trees and Rural Land Use Patterns", Land Use Policy, Butterworth Scientific, Ltd., Surrey, England, July 1989, pp. 194-196)

4. In my paper 'Doubling the Income of Africa's Poorest Farmers', I suggest that a African micro-entrepreneur could start a poultry farm of 50 chickens by initially purchasing four chickens and a rooster along with some other poultry supplies. A schoolteacher in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or Zimbabwe wants to try this idea. How much money must he invest and exactly what supplies should he buy? (Note: Variations of this idea are being implemented in The Gambia and Afghanistan by the UN FAO and by Bosnia by the International Rescue Committee)

On a larger economic scale (I re-phrased questions my friend, an economic professor at Georgetown University, has to answer for the Arab Economic Council.)

5. What equipment needs to be purchased so that Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or Zimbabwe can start a 'Protein Production System'? (A large increase in poultry production)

6. What is the most appropriate water well drilling devices to buy for use in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or Zimbabwe?

See the book 'Gospel According to Harvard Business School' for discussion on solving business cases as part of university business school training. I believe that answering these types of questions would greatly help NGOs working in Africa.

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Within the national PRSPs, gender is specifically set out to be a cross cutting scheme, yet it does not appear to be integrated into poverty and vulnerability reduction policies explicitly and I wonder what the potential is for nuanced policies within this structure.

It's been noted that there are differences within experiences in rural and urban livelihoods, and indeed those characteristics within each need to be explored in more detail - can these reach into the micro intra household level?

For one example, with the increase of returned migrant workers to the household and the economy, are there specific needs which men and women face in this changing environment? Women who do not legally own land or property are in a dependent, subordinate relationship - often relying on an allocation of land to grow food on within the household. What effect do social protection policies have on allocating resources to these households, and how are they then distributed?

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Stephen Devereux

The Way Forward

The overall question that the theme paper asks is: 'What social protection policies and institutions are needed to achieve the food security goal of ensuring adequate and appropriate food at affordable prices to all southern Africans at all times?' In the wrap-up phase of the discussion we would like to explore some fresh ideas towards this goal.

Q5.1. Is there a need for a 'National Food Security Agency' or even a Minister of Food Security, to coordinate efforts in each crisis-affected country to protect and ensure food security for all their citizens?

Q5.2. Are you aware of other initiatives related to social protection, either within the SADC region or elsewhere (e.g. in South Asia), that are worth considering or piloting in the current southern African context?

Q5.3. What other ideas for social protection can you think of to address the specific food security needs of people in southern Africa, and which interventions would you prioritise?

This discussion closes tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday), so this is also your last chance to make any general comments and observations, either on the topic or on the theme paper. As ever, I look forward to hearing from you.

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Another contributor from Zimbabwe points out that Zimbabwe does have a poverty reduction strategy, which it launched in the early 1990s and has revised since, though there has been little progress in terms of implementation. Two general lessons are drawn from this experience, which certainly apply to other countries in the region. One is the enormous gulf between capacity to draft ambitious policies or strategies (often with technical support from donors and consultants, it must be said) and the capacity to implement them and deliver on their objectives. Secondly, given HIV/AIDS and other factors that are`raising household vulnerability all the time, I would agree with the contributor from Zimbabwe, who notes that "just containing poverty is hard enough, actually reducing it is incredibly difficult". This is another sobering 'reality check'.

I would draw this discussion to a close by reflecting that the PRSPs are important strategy documents, but they are only documents. If they are over-ambitious, if senior government members aren't fully committed to their objectives, if the financial resources or technical capacity or political will to implement them is lacking, then they will fail and poverty and vulnerability in southern Africa will not even be contained, let alone reduced. On the other hand, the PRSPs do have the potential to make a difference, and since some of them pay serious attention to the difficult challenge of providing social protection for vulnerable citizens in Malawi, Zambia and elsewhere in the region, they should surely be supported.

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Re PRSP's have not had time to read the theme paper Zimbabwe does have a strategy - in fact was the first country to put one in place back in the early 90's - since then revised and reviewed each time there has been a crisis but of course its only paper - mounds of it - and nothing gets done - but maybe this is what your theme paper concludes.

But I do think there is a huge lesson to be learned from Zim and its failed strategies and that is such good intentions often go only so far as the paper they are written on - mostly because of unsustainability in the face of reality on the ground and being over optimistic about just how long it takes to actually put systems in place and get to the poverty reduction stage - just containing poverty is hard enough actually reducing it is incredibly difficult.

About urban poverty
Zim is seeing a massive increase - as yet unmeasured - in the urban poverty exacerbated of course by HIV/AIDS - and yet their needs are quite different in some respects - the coping stratefies of the urban poor must differ quite considerably just because of the food access situation apart from anything else - they do have better access to health services but here the price aspect enters since urban folk may have to pay for health services whilst rural probably don't - as poverty widens I do believe it is essential to investigate the urban sector in depth and map out their characteristics for relevant interventions.

Moving beyond
This third question is one I have been asking myself for more than 10 years as I have watched - and been part of - Zim produce paper after paper and yet never getting down to the nitty gritty of addressing vulnerability - I think the important thing is to find a mechanism to take this out of the hands of the researchers and into the hands of the doers and possibly out of the hands of government so that changes politically will not affect its implementation.

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Stephen Devereux

A contribution on social protection and the PRSPs today drew our attention to the idea of 'developmental social welfare', which aims to empower the vulnerable and assist those who can to move out of poverty. I like this argument because it makes the links to poverty reduction, and should therefore appeal to those responsible for PRSPs, but I would note again that a distinction might need to be drawn between vulnerable groups who can benefit from 'developmental social welfare' and those who can not. This same contributor notes that rural-urban migration has resulted in a relocation of poverty to urban areas. I would suggest that this trend might well be accelerating because of HIV/AIDS, and that disproportionate numbers of highly vulnerable people (orphans who become street children, widows who lose their land and property) may be moving to towns, raising the need for social protection in urban areas which is currently neglected in the PRSPs. Finally, this contributor makes a plea for simplifying social assistance, with the objective of meeting basic human needs. This remark is a useful 'reality check', and reminds us that social protection, like poverty reduction, shares a common goal of alleviating human suffering. Given this shared objective, an integrated approach to poverty reduction must surely incorporate social protection as a central pillar. Uganda's Poverty Eradication Action Plan, for instance, has four pillars, one of which is social protection. Perhaps all the countries of southern Africa that have a PRSP should be encouraged to follow this example.

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Stephen Devereux

Today (Sunday) we move on the fourth section of the e-discussion on Social Protection, which considers how social protection issues are addressed in national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in the region. Questions to guide this discussion are as follows.

Social protection and the PRSPs

The section of the theme paper that examines the role of social protection in Poverty Reduction Strategies (of the four countries that have one) concludes that Malawi's and Zambia's PRSPs give specific and detailed attention to social protection, while Lesotho's and Mozambique's PRSPs do not, and Zimbabwe has no poverty reduction strategy at all.

Q4.1. Are there lessons to be learned from Malawi's incorporation of social protection into its Poverty Reduction Strategy for other countries in the region, such as Lesotho and Mozambique?

Q4.2. The PRSPs concentrate almost exclusively on rural poverty and interventions to reduce rural poverty. Do poor and vulnerable people in urban areas have distinct characteristics and a different set of social protection needs?

Q4.3. How can we move beyond proposing a set of loosely related "social welfare" or "social safety net" tools towards an integrated approach to social protection that addresses vulnerability in a comprehensive and systematic way?

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Stephen Devereux

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A fascinating perspective on social protection from outside the region is provided in a recent ODI Briefing paper on post offices, pensions and computers by Farrington et al. This examines social protection measures in India and finds that, 'cash transfers paid through certain channels for specific purposes such as pensions and allowances are less corruptible than many in kind transfers. Stressing simplicity of targeting and automaticity of delivery, the paper suggests it may be better to identify delivery systems that work and then, with certain safeguards, design schemes around them, than design schemes incorporating the latest concepts of poverty reduction and targeting, which then prove problematic in delivery.' This paper is available online at www.odi.org.uk/nrp/87.pdf

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Stephen Devereux

Mechanisms of social protection

Structural adjustment has been associated with the removal of many policy instruments (e.g. subsidies) and institutions (e.g. marketing parastatals) that aimed to support national and household food security. This section of the theme paper explores experiences with a range of social protection tools, and finds strengths and weaknesses with all of them.

Q3.1 Is there a case to make for reintroducing untargeted social protection interventions to enhance food security in southern Africa such as food price subsidies, or fertiliser subsidies that were abolished under structural adjustment reforms?

Q3.2 How important and useful are public works programmes as a social protection tool, and what form of payment should be offered food, cash, or agricultural inputs?

Q3.3 Is there any potential for extending social pensions from relatively wealthy SADC countries (like Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, which all have social pension schemes) to poorer countries like Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia?

Q3.4 Should countries hold large Strategic Grain Reserves or move towards financial reserves, or use options markets instead? What is the optimal size for a national grain reserve? Are regional solutions to this issue possible?

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Three points emerge from this and earlier contributions that, in my view, sum up this round of discussions:

1. Social protection is urgently needed for two groups of vulnerable people in southern Africa: the 'working poor' who are living closer to the edge than ever before (because of erratic weather, market liberalisation, globalisation effects, etc.), and the 'work constrained poor' (especially people living with AIDS, and those affected by AIDS such as orphans).

2. Both the working poor and the work constrained poor are increasing in numbers across southern Africa, which is undermining the capacity of informal or traditional support mechanisms to cope, and raising the pressure on public social services and redistributive measures from governments and the international community.

3. Two strategic directions for social protection are proposed by discussion contributors. The first is to promote 'productivity-enhancing' safety nets for the working poor, together with pro-poor growth that reduces vulnerability and eventually restores self-sufficiency and sustainability to poor and vulnerable communities. The second is to focus on building communities and working together with community-based organisations, faith organisations and NGOs to provide support to the work constrained poor. This seems to be a sensible and pragmatic agenda, but a challenging one.

Thank you for your contributions. Tomorrow we will move on to looking at specific mechanisms of social protection.

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On the issue of definitions, Andrew Shepherd of ODI points out that risks are both co-variant (affecting large numbers of people simultaneously e.g. a drought) and idiosyncratic (affecting individuals or households e.g. falling ill), and that the distinction between social insurance and social assistance is not clear-cut in a context of widespread chronic poverty. In order to narrow the focus to true social protection interventions which have been badly neglected. Andrew argues against including borderline projects such as free education or fertiliser handouts in the definition.

Because of the scale of the chronic poverty problem across southern Africa, Andrew Shepherd sees public redistribution as the only way to provide social protection private insurance (and, presumably, informal mechanisms) simply cannot cope. On the other hand, poor country governments cannot afford to finance social protection on the scale needed, which leaves the international community as the only source of the necessary financing. Here Andrew puts forward two interesting ideas. One is to encourage South Africa to pay war reparations and other forms of redistribution to its neighbours within the region though this might be politically difficult to achieve. The other idea is to lobby the G8 to agree to fund a long-term social protection system in southern Africa say for 20 years with an exit strategy based on successful pro-poor growth and national governments contributing an increasing proportion to the costs over time.

Similarly, another contributor also stressed the need to link social protection to efforts to lift people out of the poverty trap. A number of ideas were suggested, mostly related to the objective of pro-poor growth. Clearly, these ideas apply to farmers and other working poor groups, rather than groups who are unable to take advantage of economic opportunities. In this context, several ideas were proposed for supporting people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. An important principle suggested was that governments and communities (including faith-based organisations) must work together to provide this support; neither partner can meet the needs on their own. Finally, a useful note was circulated on nutritional support to people living with HIV/AIDS, from a programme in Kenya.

Thanks for your contributions. This discussion continues tomorrow; after which I will sum up this session.

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The extent and depth of poverty in Malawi is well documented. According to the 1998 Integrated household survey, 65.3% of the population was poor and within this figure, about 28.7% (18.7%) of the total population were living in extreme poverty. These calculations were based on a definition of the poor as those whose consumption of basic needs (food and non-food) was below the minimum level estimated at MK10.47 per day In 1998, at which time the average exchange rate per dollar in 1998 was just over 31. Those who have insufficient human capacity to generate the income required to meet their basic needs.

The exacerbating effect of gender, age and sickness or disability upon poverty is also evident in Malawi although less well documented. Poor households tend to have larger families with many dependants. In Malawi the national dependency ratio (dependants per person of working age) is 0.89. For poor households this rises to 1.05 High dependency ratios are more likely to stress household resources. 'The presence of orphans and old people means that most of the household harvest is consumed and nothing can be spared to invest, such as purchases of livestock (Which would make the household more secure). A qualitative study of the poorest of the poor in Dedza found that the end of household food security was often mentioned as the beginning of the decline into ultra poverty . It further found that in Malawi the main distinguishing characteristic of the ultra poor is dependence upon selling labour, not for cash but for food and possibly seed.

For poor households, then, cash is extremely limited, and furthermore purchasing power is eroded by micro-economic instability. In particular, inflationary pressures adversely affect the poor. Average annual inflation has been running at over 25% since 1998, while the price of the most basic foodstuffs, maize fluctuates dramatically from year to year as well as within a given year.

With the notable exception of HIV/AIDS, there is little mention in policy documents of the impact of poverty alongside chronic illness or disability. Even the discussion of HIV/AIDS tends to dwell on the impact of mortality among working age adults and the consequent high numbers of orphans, rather than the impact of living with terminal illness or caring for AIDS patients. There is little or no explicit discussion of the livelihood issues for poor chronically ill or disabled people and a dearth of statistical evidence regarding numbers and needs.

The perception of vulnerable people as a "burden" and a "zero value investment" is evident in policy debates also.

The prevalent kind of analysis emphasis only the economic aspects of growth, and ignores the social dimension completely. People who are disadvantaged by disability, infirmity in old age, or sickness, for example, can contribute to the development and growth of their community but may not be able to generate income.

The underlying inability to cope with shocks will remain until the vulnerability of the population is addressed. In the past this has been addressed through the traditional safety nets mechanisms; unfortunately the informal social safety nets in the form of dyadic relations between close kin may still be stronger than expected, but are under strain because of general impoverishment. These safety nets may revive if there is a general rise in welfare i.e. when benefits from development projects reach those who can give support.

In a study on the rural elite in our programme it was found that while there was more economic and social resilience and initiative among these, they were not far above the ultra poor and the risk of them falling into dire poverty was often clear. One more bad harvest, prolonged illness or bad luck in exchanging labour for wage, would make them fall into ultra poverty.

The first thing is to look at the reasons that have eroded the capacities of rural communities to be self-sufficient. These have clear links with the issues of market liberalisation, globalisation and unfair global trade terms. They have to do with the ever-increasing exploitation of rural productive resources in exchange for steadily dwindling returns.

The issues of food security need to be revisited paying more attention to the use of technologies with minimal or no market or import component. That is with the aim of creating internal/local markets and putting emphasis on local sufficiency.

Strengthening coping mechanisms by looking holistically at households and communities other than individual based approaches. Look at productivity enhancing or livelihood-protecting aspects that can enable households and communities to care for their disadvantaged members, and enable them to play their part in a more holistically defined "growth process". Community building among the ultra poor is the necessary first stage in any attempt to reach them. For example it may be that the provision of alternative communal care for orphans or the sick at home might free up other household members to generate income in a more sustainable way.

At the end of it all, a commitment to invest for longer-term sustainability other than short-term economic goals is critical from all development agencies. This may as well mean investing in some form of welfare in the initial stages for the purpose of creating space to allow the rejuvination of traditional support mechanisms.

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Please read the following information - HIV/AIDS and food security/ malnutrition

Teaching Your Client about Eating a Nutritious Diet - Janet Feldman

Dear Friends
Children and youth not in school also need to be considered, which is why "Food for All" campaigns - such as I recently read about in Uganda (on the WOUGNET site) - are so vital. Local communities themselves can produce some or much of what is needed if given various types of technical assistance and funding to start and/or expand nutrition and agricultural/farming programs, and hopefully this will be placed squarely on the list of donor interests. I ran across this fantastic Workshop to day given by Stacia Nordin of the Peace Corps in Malawi, an expert on nutrition and the cultivation and use of local resources (foods) to address HIV/AIDS through nutritional means. I thought I would post it for everyone, as it has great relevance to what we are discussing, and its principles adapted to any cultural context.
Janet Feldman, Director, KAIPPG/International

Nutritional Program in Support of AIDS-affected families

Introduction
The Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group (KAIPPG) is a local NGO that works with the disadvantaged people in the rural areas of Western Kenya. KAIPPG mobilizes communities to use local resources in an endeavour to address HIV/AIDS. KAIPPG has three programs running in the community: Home-Based Care, Advocacy, and Nutrition. The nutrition program is run under the title of Community Based Dietary Intervention Project (CBDIP). This report is meant to highlight the primary components of the latter program.

Significance of the Program
Malnutrition is a major factor in dealing with HIV/AIDS that has always gone unnoticed, and which is rarely considered by most AIDS service organizations. Untreated malnutrition is a major cause of early deterioration and the ultimate death of thousands of HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya. Dietary deficiency of calcium and vitamin C is responsible for mouth sores common in HIV/AIDS patients. Protein and complex starches help build and maintain muscles, while excess starch moderates fats. Apart from helping to rebuild body organs, proper diets help the HIV/AIDS patients to cope with the strong medicines used to treat opportunistic infections associated with HIV/AIDS, such as TB. In addition, micronutrients improve the body's ability to clear by-products and toxins (including those generated from the strong anti-TB drugs), thereby reducing skin inflammation and blisters. Because of their precarious conditions people with HIV/AIDS (PWHAS) need dietary supplies that can be easily absorbed (such as fruits and vegetables) without burdening their bodies. In developed countries drugs for PWHAS are administered alongside nutritional supplements to give the patient a better chance of recovery. Such ARV treatments and expensive nutritional supplements are far beyond reach for the poor communities in Western Kenya where KAIPPG operates.

At the rate of 700 Kenyans dying every day due to HIV/AIDS, the society's capacity to foster stable families and healthy individuals has been highly compromised. The sweeping effects of HIV/AIDS in families have left a myriad of problems in their wake. Most communities are now left exposed to food insecurity. Their ability to grow food has been reduced because so many farmers are sick or dying, as are individuals who grow their own foodstuffs. The weak HIV/AIDS patients, who need good nutrition to help them cope with their disease, are vulnerable to malnutrition. HIV/AIDS deaths have created an overwhelming orphan problem in the community. These orphans develop malnutrition as well, which complicates their ability to heal even the curable diseases they may contract. Within Western Kenya, the malnutrition rate stands at 34%. KAIPPG has created the CBDIP to try and address this problem, especially among the widows and orphans affected/infected by HIV/AIDS.

Activities
KAIPPG selected 180 vulnerable women from its regional units. Nutritional field schools were formed, so learning would take place within the community. Members were taught and trained in the entire process of crop husbandry and food production. They were taught how to use adaptable technologies in energy preservation, local production of animal and plant cakes, bread-baking, and hygienic practices for keeping food safe to eat. Members donated parcels of land and labor, which was harnessed through a "merry-go-round system". Each field school had a leader who supervised its activities and coordinated with KAIPPG. These groups, through their group leaders, were also trained to give basic treatment and care to their sick members. 15% of the yield from grains, cereals, and fruits was to be retained and supplied to the other widows who did not benefit from the first phase of the project. This aspect of material sharing helped expand the project without relying on external support, and fostered a feeling of family and community togetherness.

Project Outcomes
1. The health status of HIV/AIDS affected and infected widows and orphans improved.

2. Vulnerable members of the community were empowered in cheaply adaptable technologies i.e. nutrition management and home-based care for PLWAS, and also in more general terms. This has benefitted women in particular, who compromise a majority in our programs and communities,especially in terms of caregiving and being the family breadwinners.

3. We learned that it is locally possible to solve the problem of malnutrition in AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children through empowerment education.

4. More people living with HIV/AIDS or affected by HIV/AIDS need food and increased nutritional supplements, and we found a way to provide that.

5. We learned that incisive knowledge about HIV/AIDS and nutrition needs to be gathered and disseminated, so we plan to expand our own program and network and partner with like-minded organizations on programs to increase research, advocacy, and access to nutritional information and resources.

6. Foster parents need to help orphans utilize the large tracts of land their parents left to raise crops. Lack of food has thrown many orphans out into the streets to beg, if not into various orphanages where food will be available.

The lessons KAIPPG has learned from this program have enabled us not only to help our own clients, but to disseminate these ideas and this project to others, who have used it as a model for their own nutrition programs. We have also been able to refine and perfect our own model, thereby creating as optimum a response as possible to the often-devastating malnutrition that complicates not only the survival but the quality-of-life and chances for longevity of those living with HIV/AIDS.

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On 2.1 I don't think very poor counties like Malawi or Zambia can provide social protection on the scale needed to make a difference, and not in the short-medium term when it is badly needed, and without which so many persistently poor people and their children have really no chance of escaping their misery. There is possibly some scope in southern Africa for regional redistribution by South Africa, around war reparations (Mozambique, Angola) or labour migration and HIV/AIDS issues (Lesotho, Malawi), but the South Africans are probably politically absorbed by their own problems and may find it difficult to respond. So the international community has to decide, here as in other poorly performing regions, whether to support social protection for the long term. I think the only way this can be done on the scale necessary is to carve it out from existing public expenditure plans for a substantial period - say 20 years, while modelling and monitoring its effects on inflation. The idea would be to create a system which gets small but significant pensions and allowances to the chronically poor. This would generate demand for locally produced goods and help to generate a pattern of pro-poor growth. Especially imporant in remote/less favoured regions where sources of growth are difficult to come by. The governments would need to buy in to contributing a proportion of the costs from public expenditures, and to finding an increasing proportion over the 20 years so that at the end they are financing the schemes.

The main problem with this is how to get it accepted internationally. It needs a strong international campaign by researchers, NGOs, advocates, the UN (eg ILO in the lead?) bringing together the information, suggestions for a programme, and then to get the G8 to accept the idea and develop a plan.

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Stephen Devereux

Social protection needs in southern Africa

Q1. How can very poor countries provide effective social protection for their citizens, given the fiscal constraints these governments face, and pressures to prioritise public spending in the productive economic sectors rather than the social sectors?

Q2. Given the close linkages between chronic and transitory food insecurity, is there any potential for interventions that link relief and development by supporting people through short-term crises while reducing their long-term vulnerability?

Q3. Since governments and donors have inadequately planned for the socio-economic impacts of HIV/AIDS, what ideas can we propose to provide social protection for affected households and communities against these negative consequences?

Do feel free to add general comments on the paper and the issues it addresses (or fails to address) as well. This section of the discussion will run until tomorrow evening (Thursday).

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Stephen Devereux

It seems that no-one responded to the questions about defining social protection that initiated the Social Protection session of the e-discussion yesterday. Tomorrow we will move on to examining social protection needs in southern Africa.

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Stephen Devereux

The Social Protection session of the e-discussion started earlier today; the theme paper is downloadable from the Forum website. The discussion topic until tomorrow afternoon (UK time) focuses on the conceptual and definitional aspects. A reminder of the questions that were suggested to structure the discussion:

Defining social protection in the southern African context
The paper begins by setting out some current definitions of social protection. Are these relevant to the contemporary southern African context or should they be modified?

Q1. Do you agree with definitions of social protection that emphasise the two aspects of 'social assistance' to chronically poor and vulnerable groups (such as orphans), and 'social insurance' against risk (e.g. weather shocks undermining farmers' harvests)?
Q2. Is anything left out of the definitions presented in the theme paper? Should the definition be adapted to the specific vulnerability context of southern Africa?
Q3. What should be included under the label 'social protection', and what should be excluded - e.g. is free primary education a social protection measure? Is the free distribution of fertiliser in Malawi an agriculture programme or social protection?

Those of you who follow these debates might want to comment on how the term 'social protection' has evolved from the earlier term 'social safety nets', and how it differs from the World Bank's concept of 'social risk management'. Alternatively, you might have thoughts on how these terms are used in your own country or organisation. Is 'social protection' a useful concept, or do you prefer 'safety nets'?

I look forward to hearing from you.

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