Taking politics seriously in social protection research, policy and practice: insights from Zambia

Since the early 2000s, donors such as DFID and the World Bank have played a key role in promoting social protection programmes, particularly cash transfers, across sub-Saharan Africa. This raises important questions about the interaction between international influences and national politics in determining policy decisions and designs. In particular, it is vital to recognise that the promotion of social protection requires an understanding of political context.

These debates are highly relevant for both academic and policy actors engaged with the topic of social protection.

This fellowship will contribute to these debates by drawing on my PhD research, which developed a framework to analyse the politics of policy-making across global, national and local levels, using the case of Zambia. During three fieldwork trips, I conducted 96 interviews with government officials, politicians, development partners and civil society organisations, as well as 16 focus group discussions with beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the social cash transfer programme.

My thesis, which was funded by an ESRC +3 doctoral scholarship, made both theoretical and empirical contributions to our understanding of the politics of social protection policies in developing countries. These original contributions were achieved by integrating global, national and local processes into my analysis of social cash transfers and social health insurance policies in the context of Zambia.

This fellowship will enable me to further develop these ideas and communicate my findings to both academic and non-academic audiences.

A central focus of the activities will be to publish at least three articles in high quality journals. Having already published one section of my thesis as a chapter in an open access Oxford University Press edited book, these articles will address the politics of policy implementation, policy transfer and social health insurance respectively.

In addition I will conduct further research on social health insurance in Zambia (within the 25% limit), combining this fieldwork with academic and policy engagement in Zambia, building on the successful dissemination visit to Zambia I conducted in July 2019. As well as presenting my work to various academic audiences, I will engage with policy actors in Zambia during policy development.

These actors include government officials, UNICEF and DFID, who have directly requested further input from me to inform their work on policy design.

I will also undertake two research visits to present my work to new audiences and develop valuable professional networks. The first trip will be to South Africa to visit the University of Cape Town and University of South Africa, to connect with Africa-based researchers, including Professor Jeremy Seekings and Professor Jimi Adesina. The second trip will be to the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn, Germany - one of the largest development agencies in the world - to expand the academic and policy impact of my research by reaching new audiences and building networks with researchers and practitioners in my field.

Finally, I will return to Manchester to finalise my third paper based on the additional research in Zambia and to widely disseminate my work in the UK and Europe. This will be achieved through presenting at prestigious academic conferences, including the European Conference on African Studies and African Studies Association UK, as well as meetings with policy audiences including DFID, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

As well as providing strong foundations for my research career, these activities will help to further the cutting-edge work of Global Development Institute (GDI) and Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) research centre on poverty reduction and social justice, thereby contributing to the University of Manchester's global inequalities beacon.