IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1996.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Namibia's social safety net : issues and options for reform

Author

Listed:
  • Subbarao, Kalanidhi

Abstract

This report describes Namibia's social safety net and issues and options for reform. In Namibia, the extended family is a big shock absorber: informal sharing arrangements between and within households are Namibia's unique sources of strength. Grandparents contribute enormously to the continuation of this safety net by letting the entire family share their social pension in times of need, and by looking after their grandchildren while parents are away or are AIDS-infected. Yet, these informal safety nets are not robust during periods of drought, and are strained in normal times due to the high levels of unemployment and the growing burden of children of AIDS-infected parents. Of all the formal safety net programs, the social pension program and the disability grant touch the lives of the poor more than other programs. Namibia is one of the few countries in Africa to administer a social pension program for every individual after attaining the age of 60. The three main grants for needy children also suffer from regional asymmetry and are heavily urban-biased. The pro-urban and middle class bias appear highest for in-kind programs, viz., school feeding programs and shelter/housing programs. Up gradation of squatter settlements and single-room apartments, and provision water and sanitation facilities are a priority; public resources need to be reallocated to those programs of direct relevance to the rural poor. The country has many other transfer programs including subsidization of welfare homes and remission of rent for apartments with overdue rents. The impact of these programs on poverty appears at best dubious. Elimination of these programs will release the administrative resources needed to implement social pensions and disability grants more effectively. The resource savings may contribute to overall fiscal sustainability of programs. The principal conclusion of this study is while the informal safety net is unable to cope with the increasing demands, the formal programs are too many and poorly administer.

Suggested Citation

  • Subbarao, Kalanidhi, 1998. "Namibia's social safety net : issues and options for reform," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1996, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1996
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1998/11/17/000178830_98111703524624/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Servaas van der Berg, 2002. "Issues in South African Social Security," Working Papers 01/2002, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pauline Rossi & Mathilde Godard, 2022. "The Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility: Evidence from the Extension of Social Pensions in Namibia," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 488-518, November.
    2. Kakwani, Nanak & Subbarao, Kalanidhi, 2005. "Aging and poverty in Africa and the role of social pensions," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 32752, The World Bank.
    3. Larry Willmore, 2004. "Universal Pensions in Low Income Countries," Public Economics 0412002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anne Case, 2004. "Does Money Protect Health Status? Evidence from South African Pensions," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 287-312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kalie Pauw & Liberty Mncube, 2007. "Expanding the Social Security Net in South Africa: Opportunities, Challenges and Constraints," Research Report 8, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    3. Servaas van der Berg, 1997. "South African social security under apartheid and beyond," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 481-503.
    4. Esther Duflo, 2000. "Child Health and Household Resources in South Africa: Evidence from the Old Age Pension Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 393-398, May.
    5. Lawrence Schlemmer & Valerie Møller, 1997. "The Shape of South African Society and its Challenges," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 15-50, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1996. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.