Towards More Equitable Coverage of Social Transfers and School Support for Children in Southern Africa
About
Across Southern Africa, social assistance programmes play a critical role in safeguarding children's rights and supporting their development. Yet despite significant expansions in recent decades, coverage remains uneven, often failing to reach the children who need support most. As governments face fiscal constraints and competing priorities, understanding how well existing programmes serve the most vulnerable children has never been more urgent.
This policy brief presents new evidence from a comprehensive five country analysis examining the equity of social transfer and school support coverage among children experiencing poverty, orphanhood, and disability. The research is a collaboration between the Accelerate Research Hub (based across the Universities of Oxford and Cape Town), UNICEF, and UNFPA, bringing together academic rigour and programmatic expertise to inform policy and practice.
Drawing on nationally representative data from 84,600 children across Comoros, Eswatini, Madagascar, Malawi, and Zimbabwe collected through Round 6 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS 6), the research reveals both progress and persistent gaps in reaching at risk children.
The full research paper, "Towards more equitable coverage of social transfers and school support for children in Southern Africa: A five country analysis," is available as a preprint at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5187713
Key findings show that while coverage is often higher among poor, orphaned, and disabled children compared to their peers, the differences are generally small, highlighting significant equity gaps. Notably, programmes that explicitly target at risk groups or use proxy criteria such as high dependency ratios achieve substantially better coverage among vulnerable populations. These findings point to concrete opportunities for strengthening social protection systems across the region by prioritizing vulnerable groups in programme design and eligibility criteria. This brief synthesizes the research findings and offers practical recommendations for policymakers, programme designers, and development partners working to ensure that every child in Southern Africa has equitable access to the support they need to thrive.