THE CONTESTED INFLUENCE OF IFI’S OVER LABOUR AND SOCIAL PROTECTION POLICY works. In exchange for working four hours an unconditional monthly cash transfer a day and four days a week, households of Mt 1,500 to a projected 1,102,825 new received Mt 1,050 a month. households, living in (peri)urban and border The third was the Direct Social Action Programme (PASD), which provided shortterm monetary or in-kind transfers to poor and vulnerable households, temporarily regions, over a period of six months (RdM, 2020). Both interventions would be paid for by international development and financial institutions. unable to work. This programme served However, more than a year from the as an anchor for the roll out of a new start of the pandemic, only 378,717 new cash transfer in response to the Covid-19 households have received their first three- pandemic (UNICEF & ILO, 2021). month instalment and there is no set date for the second (MGCAS/ILO, 2021). World The social protection response to the Covid-19 pandemic Bank’s insistence that cash transfers be In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, reason for delays in the roll out of the the Mozambican government adopted PASD-PE. two ways of income support to poor and vulnerable households. The first was an additional three-month payment to existing social grant recipients. The second was administered by an electronic payment system managed by a private provider delayed payments, were the primary Historically, cash transfers in Mozambique have been paid manually by National Institute for Social Action (INAS) staff, who Figure 4: Domestic vs international resources for social assistance, 2020 17 Fast-tracking Financialization - International Financial Institutions’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mozambique