Covid-19 grant: We can learn from Namibia

The President of South Africa announced on 21 April a new emergency Covid-19 grant to be paid to millions of South Africans. In a new article on GroundUp, Jeremy Seekings, Lena Gronbach and Nicoli Nattrass explain how the new grant can be implemented quickly, learning from the experience of neighbouring Namibia which is already rolling out its Emergency Income Grant. In Namibia, one in five people had applied for the grant and one in three of them had received a payment within one week of the grant being announced! Crucially, there is no means-test, with applications verified through comparison with the existing taxpayer and social grant databases. South Africa can do likewise.