administrative costs (Beegle, Coudouel, and Monsalve 2018). Efficiency gains in delivery systems need not always be in the form of costs but instead may be in the form of time or improved accountability and transparency. While external donor financing can be problematic due to issues with long-term sustainability and potential conflicting institutional priorities, it can be used as a short-term stopgap source of financing. Donors are on average the source of slightly more than half of the safety net financing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Challenges include, for example, the long-term sustainability of such support, conflicting institutional priorities, donor fragmentation, and the use of different fiduciary systems. Nevertheless, governments could still use these resources to finance social protection, especially in the early years of a program when a powerful coalition of support is yet to be established. Government leadership and priorities can be managed through the policymaking process and innovative resource management mechanisms, such as pooling of resources across donors into a social protection fund for emergency and shock response. For example, in Ethiopia, the Productive Safety Net Program coordinates donor financing and technical assistance through a donor coordination team. Senegal, too, serves as an example of how the national budget has taken over from external sources to finance the social safety net (box 2.6).
BOX 2.6: Growing Domestic Safety Net Commitments: The Case of Senegal
Senegal’s national cash transfer program (Programme National de Bourses de Sécurité Familiale, PNBSF) was initiated in 2013 and currently covers 300,000 beneficiary households nationwide. It provides quarterly cash transfers of CFAF 25,000 (US$41 equivalent) to poor households for five years, alongside trainings on health, education, and civil registration. Transfers are delivered in cash by La Poste through its far-reaching network of post offices. The PNBSF is a flagship initiative of the President of Senegal. Since 2012, it has been embraced as a key pillar of fighting poverty in national development strategies. Government spending on the program has increased significantly since its inception, rising from US$17 million in 2014 to more than US$50 million in 2019 and 2020. From being supported by International Development Association credit in the early years, the program is today entirely government-financed. In 2019, the government established a dedicated budget line of about US$45 million per year to cover the cost of cash transfers (data from the General Delegation for Social Protection and National Solidarity, Délégation Générale à la Protection Sociale et à la Solidarité Nationale, DGPSN). Growing government ownership can also be seen in program implementation. For example, on-the-ground facilitation of cash transfers and accompanying measures have traditionally been provided by local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), but the ministry in charge of social
108
>
A F R I C A’ S P U L S E
