Social protection in Africa

This chapter distinguishes five stages in the trajectory of social protection policy in Central, East, Southern and West Africa: the precolonial stage, dominated by the ‘informal’ and traditional forms of social protection; the colonial stage that brings on social protection models inspired by the European welfare state; the immediate post-independence years, characterised by large investments into social policies; the neoliberal stage of government entrenchment; and the contemporary stage of social assistance that brought in the expansion of social assistance programmes and architecture. Several constraints - such as low coverage in relation to needs or lack of integration into the socio-economic policy frameworks of countries - render the social protection agenda in Central, East, Southern and West Africa a still-evolving project.