The Role of Non-State Actors in Social Cash Transfers

Social cash transfers have expanded considerably over the last decade in Africa. While the largest programmes are run by public institutions, non-state actors are increasingly involved but have attracted less academic attention. This article explores the role of non-state actors in cash transfers (NSCTs) and argues that their role can be explained by how social contracts (i.e. the relations between states and citizens) have evolved historically. We suggest that the nature of the social contract with regard to state distribution of resources, such as cash transfers, can be meaningfully analysed along a continuum from universalist to patronage-based and we apply this analytical lens to Tanzania and Uganda. Empirically, we show that in Tanzania NSCTs are closely integrated into the state framework of social protection, while in Uganda NSCTs primarily operate on the margins of the state and with refugee and marginalized populations. We demonstrate how the different roles of NSCTs in the two countries can be understood as part of the universalist social contract in Tanzania and the patronage-based social contract in Uganda respectively and, linked to these contrasting political set-ups, we discuss how tensions between governments and NSCTs have been handled very differently in the two countries.