A Gendered Analysis of the Social Protection Network in ... - CISAS

important potentially negative consequence. The results suggest that targets could be
reached in a more ‘cost effective’ manner, that is that the financial incentives offered to
improve take up of education and health services during phase II could be less than
those offered during phase I (see BID 2003 for discussion).
In particular the high up take of vaccination programmes has led BID to conclude that
the food grant offered as an incentive in this case, can be cut and in the second phase the
amount offered will be reduced each year. Similarly during the next three-year phase it is
intended to gradually cut back the amounts offered to some participating families to
evaluate the impact of such measures in terms of behaviour change. That is the extreme
poor are to be used as ‘guinea pigs’ to explore how few resources can be offered for the
same gains.
The indicators used to evaluate the impact of the first phase of the RPS will be
supplemented by other indicators in the second phase, most notably the inclusion of
‘well being’ indicators including: employment and income sources, possession of
productive assets and variations in the price of basic products. However as to how the
RPS is to have a direct, or even indirect impact on these elements over the three years of
implementation is far from clear.
An evaluation of the impact of the RPS on those on whom its success depends- women
- is not contemplated.
Conclusions
The RPS can be critiqued from a number of positions. Most fundamentally, the
provision of food, money and other services to the most vulnerable does not tackle the
causes of that vulnerability and any change that is brought about is unsustainable. It is
also a relative exercise in that the increases in annual income for those families in
extreme poverty included in the RPS will only be sufficient to move them over the
extreme poverty line and into general poverty.
Taking into account the wider poverty context in which the RPS is being implemented,
and the multidimensionality of poverty, the RPS appears not only narrow in its
implementation, but also narrow in its orientation. Only a small proportion of those
living in extreme poverty will benefit from the programme and within this group
children under five years of age are prioritised. While the PRSP highlights the need for
‘special protection’ to be afforded to children under five years of age, it also notes the
existence and need of other particularly vulnerable groups, such as ‘abused women’ the
disabled and the aged. The RPS makes no mention of these groups.
More generally what narrow programmes such as the RPS do not take into account is not
only that the well being on an individual is multi-dimensional, but that one individual’s
well being may be related to that of another person – in particular that the health and
well being of children may be integrally linked to that of their parents.
This being said, the RPS is a good example of how inclusion can be as problematic as
exclusion. Women are targeted within the RPS as the means by which resources will be
delivered to children. Not only does the RPS reinforce existing gender stereotypes but it
also imposes costs on women that have not been recognised nor included when
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