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

自本世纪初以来，国际发展部和世界银行等捐助者在促进撒哈拉以南非洲的社会保护方案，特别是现金转移方案方面发挥了关键作用。这就提出了重要的问题，即在决定政策决策和设计时，国际影响和国家政治之间的相互作用。特别是，必须认识到，促进社会保护需要了解政治背景。这些辩论对于从事社会保护主题的学术和政策行为者来说都是高度相关的。这一奖学金将通过利用我的博士研究成果来促进这些辩论，我的博士研究建立了一个框架，以赞比亚为例，分析全球、国家和地方各级的决策政治。在三次实地考察期间，我与政府官员、政界人士、发展伙伴和民间社会组织进行了96次访谈，并与社会现金转移方案的受益者和非受益者进行了16次焦点小组讨论。我的论文由ESRC+3博士奖学金资助，为我们理解发展中国家社会保护政策的政治做出了理论和经验上的贡献。这些最初的贡献是通过将全球、国家和地方进程纳入我对赞比亚社会现金转移和社会健康保险政策的分析而实现的。这项奖学金将使我能够进一步发展这些想法，并将我的发现传达给学术界和非学术界的读者。活动的中心重点将是在高质量的期刊上发表至少三篇文章。在牛津大学出版社编辑的一本开放获取的书中，我已经发表了论文的一个章节，这些文章将分别讨论政策执行、政策转移和社会健康保险的政治。此外，我将在2019年7月对赞比亚进行成功传播访问的基础上，将这一实地工作与赞比亚的学术和政策参与结合起来，进一步研究赞比亚的社会医疗保险(在25%的上限内)。除了向不同的学术观众介绍我的工作外，我还将在政策制定期间与赞比亚的政策参与者接触。这些参与者包括政府官员、联合国儿童基金会和英国国际发展部，他们直接要求我提供进一步的意见，以便为他们在政策设计方面的工作提供信息。我还将进行两次研究访问，向新的受众介绍我的工作，并发展宝贵的专业网络。第一次访问将是访问南非开普敦大学和南非大学，与非洲的研究人员联系，包括Jeremy Seeking教授和Jimi Adesina教授。第二次访问将是德国波恩的德国发展研究所(DIE)--世界上最大的发展机构之一--通过接触新的受众并与我所在领域的研究人员和从业人员建立网络来扩大我的研究的学术和政策影响。最后，我将返回曼彻斯特，在赞比亚进一步研究的基础上完成我的第三篇论文，并在英国和欧洲广泛传播我的工作。这将通过在著名的学术会议上发表演讲来实现，包括欧洲非洲研究会议和英国非洲研究协会，以及与英国国际发展部、发展研究所和海外发展研究所等政策受众的会议。这些活动不仅为我的研究生涯提供了坚实的基础，还将有助于推动全球发展研究所(GDI)和有效国家和包容性发展(ESID)研究中心在减贫和社会正义方面的前沿工作，从而为曼彻斯特大学的全球不平等灯塔做出贡献。

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.