Redesigning cash transfers to assist the jobless in South Africa

A team of Oxford and University of Cape Town researchers will collaborate with the South African Presidency, Social Security Agency (SASSA) and Social Development Department (DSD) to design and pilot modifications to an existing unconditional monthly cash grant targeted at the able-bodied unemployed with low income. These collaborators have an established 3 year partnership, where researchers and government designed and government scaled this cash grant to 10.5 million people who were previously ineligible for welfare. This is the largest social safety net expansion in South Africa in nearly 20 years. The grant was initially temporary during COVID but the team has successfully advocated for it to be renewed multiple times. The entire application, eligibility checking and disbursement process is digital. With government partners, the team will design, model the poverty impacts of, and pilot four evidence-based innovations to improve the grant. These are: 1) expand the number of beneficiaries 2) improve targeting accuracy by altering the means test 3) provide beneficiaries an option to take some of the grant as a lump sum to increase the extent to which the grant can be used to purchase productive assets or invest in training and 4) provide a package of digitally administered jobseeker support add-ons to assist beneficiaries in searching for formal jobs.