ABSTRACT

This chapter addresses the issue of social protection and welfare in Africa. Africa is a highly diversified continent characterized by different socio-economic performances. It comprises the more developed countries of North Africa1 as well as the less developed sub-region of sub-Saharan Africa.2 Despite the existence of several problems and challenges, this part of the world remains a poorly researched area in comparative welfare state research. The problems that the populations of Africa face range from the lack of access to basic social protection and services (including inefficient labour markets), as existent in more advanced Western economies, to chronic malnutrition, persistent exposure to environmental challenges (such as drought, famine, and other environmental hazards) and to systemic internal conflicts and wars. These socio-economic and human development challenges have often led to riots and massive migrations, as the Arab Spring or the humanitarian crisis of the Horn of Africa in 2011 have powerfully shown. Although Africa is characterized by the presence of several significant national specificities,

some common characteristics in the approach to social protection exist. These involve: 1) a residual, confessional and clientelistic approach to social protection in the case of North Africa; and 2) a permanent emergency orientation of measures in the case of sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, the former refers to the institutional design of social protection itself which remains, in the North African case, characterized by a limited reach and coverage for the total population. Beyond these structural features, the latter concerns – in the case of sub-Saharan Africa – the type of measures implemented. These, introduced as temporary creations to address urgent problems have, subsequently, become permanent structures over time. Due to the presence of more extensive challenges, a more comprehensive approach to social

protection in Africa is necessary. In fact, as correctly emphasized by Mkandawire (2011), while in advanced capitalist economies health, education, pensions, protection against unemployment, and family policies represent the core of the systems of social protection, this is not the case of sub-Saharan Africa. Besides the classical interventions of the social policy domain, other not less important areas usually ascribed to infrastructural measures (such as water sanitation and malnutrition) must also be considered. This chapter aims to cover this theoretical and empirical gap. It provides a brief overview of the state-of-the-art of social protection and welfare in the continent, shedding light on the associated problems and future challenges. The areas we focus on include poverty, education, health, malnutrition, and access to safe water, as these represent the domains

in which a special attention of the international community and of national policy-makers is urgently required. In addressing these sectors of social protection, we also pay a special attention to issues related to discrimination and to the equal access to resources and services. In order to address these issues, the chapter is structured as follows. The first section provides

a brief overview of the current theoretical debate in comparative welfare state research. The goal is to highlight the strengths and the shortcomings of its applicability to the African context. The second section focuses, more in particular, on regime characteristics in North Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa. A special attention of the third section is given, instead, to key human development problems and challenges. The conclusion summarizes the results.