Coming together from across several disciplines, the contributors to this book reflect on the considerable problem of inequality in Zambia, comparing it with other countries both in the region and more broadly. The World Bank consistently ranks Zambia among the countries with the highest levels of poverty and inequality globally, but the problem is not widely studied; and the studies that do exist tend to focus solely on economic measures of inequality. This book uses a multidimensional analysis of inequalities, highlighting the ways in which certain social groups and geographical locations are more likely to suffer multiple inequalities. It investigates key issues around poverty, healthcare, income, law, disability, and power inequalities. Particularly showcasing the work of local researchers, this book will be of interest to researchers of African studies, development, economics, and politics.
This book discusses social welfare activities in Zambia in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods. It explains how indigenous social welfare initiatives in colonial Zambia, culminated in the Federation of Welfare Societies. The former became the first nationalist party in this era known as the Northern Rhodesia Congress (NRC), with Godwin Mbikusita Lewanika as its leader. The book also elucidates how the first African government, which was headed by Kenneth Kaunda, attained positive human development indictors in Zambia in the 1960s. Nonetheless, this was at the expense of Barotseland as Kaunda's government had deliberately underdeveloped Barotseland after independence, whilst harassing and imprisoning Barotse activists for decades. After 1991, successive governments continued to apply Kaunda's methods. The book contends that Zambia in its present form is an illegal state, because the Barotseland Agreement was abrogated by Kaunda in 1969. This treaty was meant to amalgamate the former British Protectorates of Barotseland and Northern Rhodesia to form Zambia in 1964.
This first edition explores the dynamics of growth, jobs, and inequalities. It proposes ten decisive actions to promote sustainable economic and social development and to strengthen institutions in Africa.
Annotation Introduced in Bolivia a little over a decade ago, social funds have become a key community-led poverty reduction tool. The social fund model has proved to be a dynamic, replicable approach, easily adapted and scaled up in diverse countries around the world. This study is the first systematic cross-country impact evaluation of social funds using survey data and accepted evaluation methodologies.
This book considers that contextual factors are important for the achievement of social justice and it recognizes that vulnerability to which children are exposed is a phenomenon throughout the planet, particularly in the South. It presents a theoretical review of social justice as well as different situations of vulnerability children experience in their daily lives in which they can be injured, affecting their well-being and the exercise of their rights. It examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children, considered as a vulnerable group warranting special social policy considerations. It also presents the need to change power structures in knowledge production and decision-making processes to achieve social justice for children; the importance of investing in children; the exclusion of children from participation in certain activities and the shame of not being able to participate in equal conditions with others; the lives of migrant children belonging to ethnic minorities exposed to language barriers and access to technological devices; and the analysis of the process of social re-integration of children from conditions of armed conflict. The book concludes that governments need to assume social justice as part of universal human interests, providing security, conditions for well-being, and guaranteeing social justice for all children.
The need for social safety nets has become a key component of poverty reduction strategies. Over the past three decades several developing countries have launched a variety of programs, including cash transfers, subsidies in-kind, public works, and income-generation programs. However, there is little guidance on appropriate program design, and few studies have synthesized the lessons from widely differing country experiences. This report fills that gap. It reviews the conceptual issues in the choice of programs, synthesizes cross-country experience, and analyzes how country- and region-specific constraints can explain why different approaches are successful in different countries.
Poverty remains a pervasive and complex phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the agenda in recent years to tackle poverty in Africa has been the launching of social safety nets programs. All countries have now deployed safety net interventions as part of their core development programs. The number of programs has skyrocketed since the mid-2000s though many programs remain limited in size. This shift in social policy reflects the progressive evolution in the understanding of the role that social safety nets can play in the fight against poverty and vulnerability, and more generally in the human capital and growth agenda. Evidence on their impacts on equity, resilience, and opportunity is growing, and makes a foundational case for investments in safety nets as a major component of national development plans. For this potential to be realized, however, safety net programs need to be significantly scaled-up. Such scaling up will involve a series of technical considerations to identify the parameters, tools, and processes that can deliver maximum benefits to the poor and vulnerable. However, in addition to technical considerations, and at least as importantly, this report argues that a series of decisive shifts need to occur in three other critical spheres: political, institutional, and fiscal. First, the political processes that shape the extent and nature of social policy need to be recognized, by stimulating political appetite for safety nets, choosing politically smart parameters, and harnessing the political impacts of safety nets to promote their sustainability. Second, the anchoring of safety net programs in institutional arrangements †“ related to the overarching policy framework for safety nets, the functions of policy and coordination, as well as program management and implementation †“ is particularly important as programs expand and are increasingly implemented through national channels. And third, in most countries, the level and predictability of resources devoted to the sector needs to increase for safety nets to reach the desired scale, through increased efficiency, increased volumes and new sources of financing, and greater ability to effectively respond to shocks. This report highlights the implications which political, institutional, and fiscal aspects have for the choice and design of programs. Fundamentally, it argues that these considerations are critical to ensure the successful scaling-up of social safety nets in Africa, and that ignoring them could lead to technically-sound, but practically impossible, choices and designs.
The World Bank has partnered with the Commitment to Equity Institute at Tulane University to implement their diagnostic tool—the Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Assessment—designed to assess how taxation and public expenditures affect income inequality, poverty, and different economic groups. The approach relies on comprehensive fiscal incidence analysis, which measures the contribution of each individual intervention to poverty and inequality reduction as well as the combined impact of taxes and social spending. The CEQ Assessment provide an evidence base upon which alternative reform options can be analyzed. The use of a common methodology makes the results comparable across countries. This volume presents eight country studies that examine the distributional effects of individual programs and policy measures—and the net effect of each country’s mix of policies and programs. These case studies were produced in the context of Bank policy dialogue and have since been used to propose alternative reform options.
This paper is the fifth in a series that examines macroeconomic developments and prospects in low-income developing countries (LIDCs). LIDCs are a group of 59 IMF member countries primarily defined by income per capita below a threshold level. LIDCs contain one fifth of the world’s population—1.5 billion people—but account for only 4 percent of global output. The first chapter of the paper discusses recent macroeconomic developments and trends across LIDCs and, using growth decompositions, explores the key drivers of growth performance in LIDCs. A second chapter examines the challenges faced by LIDCs in implementing a value-added tax system, generally seen as a key component of a strong national tax system. The third chapter discusses how financial safety nets can be appropriately tailored to the specific needs of LIDCs, recognizing that an effective safety net is important for ensuring financial stability and underpinning public confidence in the financial system, thereby promoting financial intermediation.
"This World Health Report was produced under the overall direction of Carissa Etienne ... and Anarfi Asamoa Baah ... The principal writers were David B. Evans ... [et al] -- t.p. verso.
