Who should pay?

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, we explore bargaining between the Tanzanian government and international aid agencies over the design and funding of the Productive Social Safety Nets (PSSN) programme. In a context of diverging preferences (donors favouring PSSN; the government being sceptical), the government tried to limit its own contributions with tactical delays based on the knowledge that donors would want the PSSN to continue. Concurrently, the government tried to modify the programme design to have stronger ‘productivist’ elements, which they saw as fitting its development vision. We show that although the international aid agencies are of financial importance to the government, they cannot push the government to take over funding responsibility of just any programme. Hence, while the government may concede in terms of programme design, it has been able to induce international aid agencies to remain the main revenue providers of the PSSN.