South Africa : Social Assistance Programs and Systems Review
Despite being an upper middle income country, South Africa’s high inequality and the long-lasting legacies of apartheid mean that the country is faced with numerous development challenges, many of which are characteristic of countries with much low...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/undefined/238611633430611402/South-Africa-Social-Assistance-Programs-and-Systems-Review http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36514 |
| Summary: | Despite being an upper middle income
country, South Africa’s high inequality and the long-lasting
legacies of apartheid mean that the country is faced with
numerous development challenges, many of which are
characteristic of countries with much lower incomes. This
paper focuses on social assistance and, specifically, the
system of social grants in South Africa. This report aims to
review the social assistance system in South Africa to first
understand how it functions and what kinds of benefits it
provides through which programs, and what tools and systems
it uses to do so. Second, it reviews the performance of the
system in terms of coverage, targeting, benefit incidence,
adequacy, cost-effectiveness, and outcomes. Third, it
assesses the extent to which the system is aligned and
equipped to address the so called “triple challenge” of
poverty, inequality, and unemployment as shown by data. It
also reviews the limitations in the design, delivery
systems, and institutional coordination at different
administrative levels. Based on the analysis, this paper
provides some recommendation for what adjustments and
improvement the South African social assistance system could
undertake in the next fi ve years in order to better align
the system address the structural causes of poverty and
inequality in addition to providing relief and income
support. The report concludes and provides some policy and
programme recommendations for the future. |
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