TSIDE ZEWIDE has lived in the shadow of the national palace in Addis Ababa for more than 50 years. Since her husband died four years ago the 73-year-old has cared for three orphans, the grandchildren of her late sister, alone in a rundown government-owned shack. She has no pension and, until recently, had no income. “I relied on the kindness of my neighbours,” she sighs.
50多年来，赛德·祖德一直住在首都亚的斯亚贝巴皇家宫殿附近。自丈夫在四年前去世后，这位73岁的老人独自一人照顾已故妹妹留下的三个孤古伶仃的孙儿，住的是政府的破旧棚户区。祖德一直没有养老金，也只是近来才有一些收入。“我一直靠着我善良的邻居救济。” 她叹声说道。
Last year Mrs Zewide’s fortunes changed. She and some 80 of her neighbours rise at dawn to sweep the streets of the Ethiopian capital for three hours a day. For this she is paid 1,200 Ethiopian birr ($44) a month, a fifth of which she is required to save. “It’s good for me psychologically,” she says. “It keeps me busy, and now at least I can tell people I have a job.” Her teammates nod in agreement.
去年，祖德的命运发生了变化。她与80多位邻居每天黎明时分便起来清扫街道，一天三小时。从此，祖德每月都有1,200埃塞俄比亚比尔（44美元）的收入，其中五分之一需要存到银行账户中。“这让我的精神比以前更好了，”她说。“有了这份工作，我每天都可以忙起来，至少我可以告诉别人我有工作了。” 她的清扫队友们也纷纷点头同意。
They are participants in Ethiopia’s Urban Productive Safety Net Project, which was launched in 2017 and is among the largest social programmes in sub-Saharan Africa (outside South Africa) designed specifically for urban areas. About 400,000 poor Ethiopians in 11 cities are already enrolled. The government hopes it will eventually help 4.7m people in almost 1,000 towns. Beneficiaries are selected by a neighbourhood committee based on how poor and vulnerable they are. In addition to the paid work, they also receive training. Those who want to start their own businesses are given grants.
他们参加的是埃塞俄比亚城市生产安全保障计划。该项目于2017年启动，专门为撒哈拉以南非洲（除南非外）的城市，是最大的社会项目之一。项目已招募了困埃塞俄比亚11个城市约40万贫困人员。该国政府希望这一项目能够最终帮助近1,000个城镇的470万人。受益的人是由社区委员会根据贫困和脆弱程度选出来的。除了工作有报酬，他们还能接受培训。想创业的人还能获得资助。
Safety-nets, in one form or another, have proliferated across Africa in recent years. Spending on them in sub-Saharan Africa now amounts to about 1.5% of GDP (see chart). In Tanzania 10% of the population is covered by its safety-net (at a cost of just 0.3% of GDP). Most schemes in Africa are focused on rural people and many are temporary, often implemented by donors in response to natural disasters or conflict. Few a designed to help households manage the private misfortunes—such as illness or the death of a family member—that can tip them into destitution. They also do a poor job of reducing the chronic unemployment that has taken root in many African cities.
近些年来，非洲有各种类似安全保障计划的出现。撒哈拉以南非洲地区在安全保障计划上的支出约占GDP的1.5％（见图表）。在坦桑尼亚，有10％的人口可以享有安全保障（仅占GDP的0.3％）。非洲地区的大多数计划都侧重于农村人口，许多计划是临时性的，通常由捐助者自行实施，主要为应对自然灾害或冲突矛盾。很少有专门用于帮助遭遇不幸家庭的计划项目——比如家中某人患病或去世——这些都有可能使得整个家庭致穷。除此之外，在降低长期失业率方面也有不足，长期失业问题成为许多非洲城市的“痼疾”。
Ethiopia’s programme is a step towards building a national social-security system that will, in time, replace a hotch-potch of small ones. It builds on Ethiopia’s flagship rural safety-net, which is the largest of its kind on the continent and covers some 10m poor people in the countryside (out of a total population of about 102m). The government has committed $150m to fund the new scheme and the World Bank has stumped up the remaining $300m needed for the first five years. Ethiopia hopes that within ten years it will no longer need help financing the programme.
埃塞俄比亚的这项计划将会是朝着建立国家社会保障体系前进的一步，以在适当时间里取代众多杂乱无章的小规模安全保障项目。此项计划依据的埃塞俄比亚主要的农村安全保障——非洲大陆上覆盖范围最广的安全保障体系，覆盖约1000万的农村贫困人口（总人口约1.02亿）。埃塞俄比亚政府承诺投入1.5亿美元资助这项新计划，世界银行也已拨出另外所需的3亿美元用于前五年的建设。埃塞俄比亚希望该项目能十年之内不再需要任何其他资助。
For years the Ethiopian government flinched at terms like “social protection”. Donors are hopeful that it now considers the safety-net a long-term policy rather than “a sticking plaster that won’t be necessary once industrialisation takes off”, says Tom Lavers of Manchester University. But, he notes, antipathy towards Western-style welfarism remains strong. The government flatly rejected the idea of no-strings cash handouts, which are popular among donors and development economists, partly because they are cheap to administer. “People can’t expect a free lunch,” says Belynshe Regassa, the head of Mrs Zewide’s local committee.
多年来，埃塞俄比亚政府一直不敢直面“社会保障”问题。曼彻斯特大学的汤姆·拉弗斯表示，捐助者现在满怀期待，因为埃塞俄比亚政府将安全保障计划作为一项长期政策在考虑，而不再像以前那样，认为“一旦国家工业化腾飞发展，社保计划便再无用处”。但是，他也指出，埃塞俄比亚政府断然不会接受在国家实施直接的现金捐助的想法，这通常是捐赠者和经济学家爱干的事儿，而这些资金不需要什么管理成本。“不能让所有人都眼巴巴地指望免费的午餐，”首都的委员会主席贝利斯·雷格萨（Belynshe Regassa）这样说道。
Ethiopia’s rural scheme is widely regarded as a success. It has reduced rural poverty and helped the poor buy food during a severe drought in 2016 that might have led to famine. But towns and cities are a different challenge altogether. It can be hard to know which people are most in need. Applicants must have lived in the district for at least six months to be eligible, so transient urban folk may slip through the safety-net. Mrs Regassa says locals complained to her when they were not selected by the committee. Critics say supporters of the ruling party are more likely to get picked.
埃塞俄比亚的农村安保计划获得广泛认可，有助于减少农村贫困人口，让2016年受几次重大干旱里人民买到食品，免受饥荒之苦。不过，城镇和市区地区的问题截然不同。政府很难确定哪些人是最需要帮助的。申请人必须在该地区居住至少六个月才有资格获得帮助，因此那些短暂停留的城市居民可能就无法纳入安保计划当中。雷格萨认为，一些没有被委员会选中的当地人会向她不断抱怨。批评人士也说，只有是当前执政党的拥护者才更有可能被选中。
Despite such gripes, Ethiopia’s experience suggests that even poor countries can start extending safety-nets. But if Ethiopia is to achieve its goal of weaning the scheme off donor support, it may have to make cuts to wasteful subsidies, which would be politically painful.
尽管有样的抱怨，不得不说，埃塞俄比亚的经验表明，即使是贫困国家也可以不断扩大安全保障计划。但是，若埃塞俄比亚想在脱离捐赠者帮助和支持的情况下实现安全保障计划，就不得不削减一些无用的补贴，这或许会在政治上造成不利影响。
The biggest challenge lies in the fact that even the broadest safety-nets in Africa only cover a small portion of the poor. Mrs Regassa, for example, is not eligible for help because she owns her own house. But as a single mother with four children she hopes the programme will one day include her, too.
这其中最大的挑战在于，在非洲地区，即使是覆盖范围最广的安全保障计划也只能帮助到很一小部分的穷困人口。例如，雷加萨就没有资格获得帮助，因为她拥有自己的房子。但作为有四个孩子要抚养的单身妈妈，她希望今后可以有机会享受到安全保障计划。
编译：杨雅婷
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人（2018.05.31）
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