Capturing Social Protection for the Poor: the case of "soup kitchens" in Peru

This paper analyses the Peruvian Food Assistance Programme (PRONAA) policy process using the RAPID framework to understand why and how certain groups in the public and private sector were able to capture a successful grassroots initiative to achieve their own political and economic goals, while disregarding overwhelming evidence about the programme’s failures. The case of PRONAA is particularly significant because of the magnitude of the public funds involved, about US$100 million per year (in 2000), and the outrageous mismanagement that it has endured. It is also an illustrative example of the way in which the government used a social protection policy as an intricate part of its ‘political machinery’. Several studies and on-going evaluations showed that PRONAA and, in particular, the ‘soup kitchens’, were plagued with deeply rooted inefficiencies, political capture and poor targeting. Regardless of this evidence, the project continued to receive increasing funds and support form the government. We find that the ‘soup kitchens’ are perfect examples of captured grassroots social protection initiatives for private political and economic interests, implying that moving towards a more market oriented solution of privatising the PRONAA would not provide a plausible solution. Prevailing policy recommendations in Peru fail to realise that depoliticising soup kitchens, as it is often promoted, would deny the poor that benefit from them of an important source of social capital and social insurance. We also found that in the absence of other more ‘traditional’ means of communication new strategies must be developed to repackage policy research and engage with the policy process at its different stages. With the re-birth of democratic ideas, new research-policy relations ought to be reinforced in the future to secure a continuous improvement of social policies in Peru. The analysis also highlights the deeply rooted neo-liberal policy narrative that has relegated social issues to timid and short-term responses to poverty. The soup kitchens historical narrative is rich with expressions of democracy, participation, inclusion, self-help, equity, reciprocity and other qualities desired for any society. Unfortunately these have given way to measures of efficiency and cost effectiveness.