Ability to access ser�vices of this kind has been patchy, and failures are as
notable as successes. South Africa, particularly, has “delivered” millions
of state-Â�furnished houses—Â�but equally evident are the millions more still
living in shacks and the widespread demonstrations over failed ser�vice
delivery (Alexander 2010). Yet in the midst of this fiercely �contested
landscape, there is one sort of ser�vice delivery that has indisputably
had a major distributive effect: the programs of direct social assistance
via cash grants that now directly reach 30 percent of South Africans (and