Social Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa: Getting the Politics Right

SummaryThis paper provides an overview of the recent extension of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa. It identifies two main “models” of social protection in the region: one based on age-based income transfers in the middle income countries in Southern Africa, and another more diverse and incipient group of programs providing a mix of poverty-based transfers in the low income countries in Eastern, Central, and West Africa. It concludes that for an effective institutional framework for social protection to evolve in sub-Saharan Africa, the present focus on the technical design of programs needs to be accompanied by analyses that contribute to also “getting the politics right.”