Coverage of Social Security Allowances in areas at risk of floods and droughts Final Report Suravi Bhandary, Ludovico Carraro, Madhumitha Hebbar, Pooja Singh and Yugmi Rajyashree Thapa January 2020 Coverage of social security allowances in areas at risk of floods and droughts About Oxford Policy Management Oxford Policy Management is committed to helping low- and middle-income countries achieve growth and reduce poverty and disadvantage through public policy reform. We seek to bring about lasting positive change using analytical and practical policy expertise. Through our global network of offices, we work in partnership with national decision makers to research, design, implement, and evaluate impactful public policy. We work in all areas of social and economic policy and governance, including health, finance, education, climate change, and public sector management. We draw on our local and international sector experts to provide the very best evidence-based support. Oxford Policy Management Limited Registered in England: 3122495 Level 3, Clarendon House 52 Cornmarket Street Oxford, OX1 3HJ United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1865 207 300 Fax: +44 (0) 1865 207 301 Email: [email protected] Website: www.opml.co.uk Twitter: @OPMglobal Facebook: @OPMglobal YouTube: @OPMglobal LinkedIn: @OPMglobal Coverage of social security allowances in areas at risk of floods and droughts Acknowledgements The team acknowledges the contributions of the UNICEF Nepal team, Sevara Hamzaeva, Usha Mishra, Thakur Dhakal and Antonio Franco Garcia, for their valuable feedback on the design and implementation of this study as well as the analysis of the findings. The team also thanks the DoNIDCR for their support in access both to the MIS data and the use of their premises. Finally, a special thanks goes to all the people who took part in the survey, both in the different local governments that we visited as well as the households that generously welcomed the survey teams and gave their time in answering our questions. © Oxford Policy Management i Coverage of social security allowances in areas at risk of floods and droughts Executive Summary Background and research questions UNICEF Nepal is supporting the Government of Nepal to improve shock responsiveness of the national social protection system and, if the Social Security Allowances (SSA) Programme is to be considered one of the possible channels of response, it is important to strengthen its capacity and preparedness to ensure a timely, inclusive and effective response in case of emergency. Therefore, the study aims at answering the following questions: i. What is the coverage of SSA in six districts, where there are risks of flooding or drought? ii. If there is under coverage among the SSA eligible population, who is more likely of not being reached by SSA even though eligible? What are the main barriers to access? iii. Again, if there is significant under coverage of the SSA eligible population, are the excluded more or less likely to be poor, food insecure or adopt different coping strategies when faced by a natural calamity? iv. Are SSA eligible households more or less likely to be affected by national calamities compared to other households by looking at differences in poverty levels, food security and coping strategies? v. Are there other specific sub-population groups badly affected by natural disasters and not covered by SSA? The research design is comprised of two core elements: • A population based random sample survey (5126 households) focusing on understanding coverage rates, perception of barriers of access and vulnerability in six districts (Saptari, Rautahat, Banke, Bardiya, Kalikot and Jajarkot) across 102 wards. The quantitative survey was also followed up by a comparison of people eligible to SSA based on the survey and data retained in the central MIS. • A set of follow up in-depth interviews with SSA eligible members excluded from SSA and key informant interviews to better understand factors behind exclusion in twelve sites, and also a separate investigation on two locations where there is a presence of people from endangered ethnicities. SSA coverage The figure below shows in a schematic and theoretical way the main sub-populations categories of interest and their relationships. SSA eligible population is a subset of the whole population and while ideally recipients should coincide with the eligible, because © Oxford Policy Management ii Coverage of social security allowances in areas at risk of floods and droughts of implementation failures there is often a subset of eligible who do not receive as well as the possibility of encountering recipients who are not eligible. Analysing SSA coverage Before looking at the actual size of these sub-population groups it is important to be aware that across districts there are very different eligibility rules. SSA eligibility is the highest in Kalikot with 80 percent of the population, because all children under five and all people 60 and over are eligible. In Rautahat and Jajarkot eligibility is at around 70 percent as in both districts all children under 5 are eligible to SSA, whereas eligibility falls significantly in the remaining three districts, where only Dalit children and senior Dalit citizens aged 60 to 70 are eligible to SSA. However, since Saptari has a significantly higher percentage of Dalits than other districts, about 45 percent of the population is eligible to SSA, whereas in Banke and Bardiya it stands at approximately 30 percent. We find two emerging results: inclusion error is negligible (small group C), but exclusion error is significant (large group A of eligible non-recipients); with Rautahat having the highest exclusion error and Kalikot, the lowest. However, overall SSA exclusion errors hide considerable coverage heterogeneity across the types of SSA. The extent of exclusion in the senior citizen allowance and the single women allowance is relatively low, as these allowances reach 85 percent of their respective eligible population. Instead, the overall exclusion error is largely driven by the child grant and the disability allowance, which cover respectively only 51 percent and 43 percent of the intended population. Moreover, for disability even among blue and red card holders, we find that there is not full coverage since about 87 percent receive the allowance. Coverage among the endangered ethnic groups cannot be assessed through the survey as its overall population is very small in these districts. In order to further verify the above findings, we conducted a careful exercise of checking the lists of all the eligible member identified in the survey against the beneficiaries in the MIS, and such comparison confirmed the exclusion errors identified by the survey. © Oxford Policy Management iii Coverage of social security allowances in areas at risk of floods and droughts Therefore, the study finds that there is an exclusion problem in the SSA programme. The estimated exclusion error is somewhat smaller than what other studies indicated, but still a considerable issue, especially for child and disability allowances. Why eligible people do not receive SSA? There is a radical difference that signals two rather different reasons for exclusion: a transitionary issue and a more serious exclusion among those who are not aware of SSA or did not apply. We found that 48 percent of all the eligible non-recipient persons did apply for SSA and that the majority of them are still waiting for the results of their application (39 percent), while some were either rejected or do not know their application status (respectively 6 and 3 percent). The group of people still waiting to hear the result of their application is likely to pose only a transitional problem of delayed entry, since they are likely to become beneficiaries in the near future, and indeed this was confirmed by the comparison with the MIS lists. On the other hand, while most people are aware of SSA, as only 9 percent of the excluded population has never heard of the SSA, 42 percent, who are aware of SSA, have not applied for the SSA1. The 51 percent of people who have never applied (9+42) should be the subject of further investigation. However, the first aspect to note is that there is considerable variation across the four types of SSA when it comes to eligible non-recipients who did not apply. In fact, application effort is the least among disabled individuals, as nearly 70 percent of the eligible non-recipients in this category have never applied, and then among children, with 52 percent who never applied, followed by senior citizen and single women, with 43 percent and 32 percent, respectively. In terms of the reasons reported by the respondents for not applying for the SSA, lack of information (not aware of SSA or lack of adequate information) and lack of documents are the main reasons cited for not applying, both of them being mentioned in 45 percent of the cases (multiple responses were possible). Only less than 1 percent reported that they did not apply because of discrimination or stigma, though these problems were better identified as part of the qualitative research. A very crucial aspect of the analysis consists of determining whether exclusion of the eligible is associated to poverty. This is assessed considering the distribution of the excluded across wealth quintiles and food security categories. However, it is important to analyse the excluded considering separately those who applied and those who never applied. It clearly emerges that while those who applied are not significantly different from the rest of the population, SSA recipients are and, even more, those who never applied are much poorer than the rest of the population. This demonstrates the importance of addressing the lack of coverage of the excluded as this identifies one of the groups that would most need such support. 1 This does not add up exactly to 100 due to rounding.