Early Stage Researcher: Irene Among

Research Directors: Prof. Dr. Markus Kaltenborn (Institute of Development Research and Development Policy, Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB), Germany);
Prof. Dr. Andrew Fischer (International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Netherlands)

Specified Project Title: Building Coherent Social Protection Systems - A comparative socio-legal analysis of mechanisms in South Africa and Uganda.

Objectives:
Numerous studies of the social systems of low- and middle-income countries have described that the fragmentation of social policy, in particular the lack of coordination and coherence between the individual subsystems, has led to major implementation problems. Frequently, different institutions supervise the various social programmes and the requirements for social benefits are formulated or interpreted differently. This makes it difficult for the beneficiaries, who are often addressees of several programmes, to find the right contacts and to understand the structures of the support they receive. These problems are even further intensified if neighbouring policy areas (e.g. labour market policy, child protection, public health) are not adequately coordinated with social policy. In some countries, the coordination of the different social protection areas is carried out by a so-called framework law, setting out general rules that apply uniformly to all social protection areas or containing provisions on institutions that are interdepartmentally involved in the coordination, implementation or control of the various social policy programmes. The project will investigate these and other examples of frameworks, which facilitate coordination and coherence in social protection systems.

Expected Results:
Identification of common pitfalls as well as of good practice examples of legal frameworks designed to coordinate different social protection areas. Derivation of recommendations on how to design coordination frameworks in settings where different social policy areas overlap.

Secondments:
The project involves a strong collaboration between the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy at RUB and the International Institute of Social Studies of EUR and therefore includes mandatory research stays of the ESR in The Hague for six months in total.
Further secondments are planned as field research periods (3 months each) in Africa, supervised by the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and Makerere University (Uganda).

Publications:

Among, Irene, Kaltenborn, Markus, and Zakharchenko, Natalia (forthcoming): “The legal framework of institutional change in social protection systems”, in Bender, L., and Kaltenborn, M. (eds.), Transformative Social Protection Systems (Edward Elgar Publishing).

Among, Irene and Kaltenborn, Markus (forthcoming): The African Protocol on the Rights of Citizens to Social Protection and Social Security: Prospects for comprehensive social protection systems, African Journal of International and Comparative Law.

El Assal, Ahmed and Among, Irene (2024), 'Urban Public Perceptions of NGOs’ Accountability and Legitimacy: A Social Media Analysis of #UgandaNGOsExhibition', Voluntas.

Conferences:

June 2024: Conference of the Development Studies Association (DSA) at SOAS, University of London.

October 2023: Southern Africa Social Protection Experts Network (SASPEN) Annual International Conference at Mauritius University.

June 2023: EADI General Conference in Portugal, Lisbon.

April 2023: Ulster University Londonderry Socio-Legal Studies Conference.

June 2022: International Sustainable Development Research Society (ISDRS) conference in Stockholm, Sweden.