2.7 Three Emerging Directions for Strengthening Social Protection in Africa

FIGURE 2.7: Three Emerging Directions for Strengthening Social Protection in Africa

DIRECTION 1

Diversify policy objectives and instruments for expanded coverage and reach of social protection, particularly focusing on informal sector workers and urban areas

Strengthen adaptive delivery systems and leverage data and technological innovation for wider coverage and reachDIRECTION 2

DIRECTION 3 Enhance nancing for wider, more sustainable coverage and more e ective shock response

Direction 1: Diversifying Policy Objectives and Instruments to Expand Coverage and Reach

In view of the pressing challenges posed by rapidly increasing urbanization and informality and increasing vulnerability to shocks, social protection systems in Africa can diversify the objectives and instruments to enhance protection for all. Countries in Africa can build on their emerging noncontributory rural poverty-focused social safety net schemes to promote resilience to climate and other shocks, build human capital, promote more productive and shock resilient livelihoods, and advance women’s empowerment. This means building contributory instruments to help nonpoor, but vulnerable, urban informal sector workers better manage risks and become more resilient to shocks.

Toward Greater Adaptation and Response to Shocks

Social protection systems in Sub-Saharan Africa need to become more adaptive for enhanced resilience and wider coverage in times of shock and crisis. Reach can be understood conceptually as the potential coverage in times of shock. It can come through noncontributory cash transfers or contributory savings instruments for informal workers. Reach depends on the robustness of social protection delivery systems (size and quality of the social registry, foundational and government-recognized ID, and payment systems), relevant instruments (cash transfers and savings schemes), and available financing. Building back better from the COVID-19 shock involves, first, reinforcing resilience-building measures through productive/economic inclusion programs targeted to the extreme poor, including by deliberately engaging women for their empowerment and for boosting their role as drivers of household resilience. Second,

it means expanding the reach of shock response through cash transfers, that is, the ability of social protection systems to flex and reach people impacted by shocks where and when they need protection.

The design and delivery of cash transfer plus programs can be more reflective of countries’ enhanced vulnerability to climate change and pandemics and adapted to contexts of fragility and conflict. Adaptive social protection is a key instrument in the arsenal of pandemic preparedness. In the face of increasing fragility, cash transfer plus programs can be leveraged to assist forcibly displaced populations and help them adapt to contexts of heightened insecurity. The agenda of building adaptive national systems is also redefining the role of humanitarian actors and their relationship with development and national actors, with a greater emphasis on delivering humanitarian emergency response in such a way that it supports, as opposed to bypasses, the building of national adaptive social protection systems. Generally, the adaptive approach to social protection allows for a constructive alignment between humanitarian and disaster relief aid and national social protection.

Toward More Impactful Human Capital Programs

African social protection systems can also reinforce the effectiveness of social safety nets in promoting resilient human capital. A growing risk of shocks means a growing risk to human capital formation, as the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, and climate shocks risk impacting maternal and child nutrition and decisions to keep children (especially girls) in school or not. Conversely, investments in human capital increase households’ capacity to weather shocks and break the intergenerational poverty cycle. This raises the question of how to maximize the use of the existing social protection “platforms” for human capital, women and girls’ empowerment, and other valuable investments. While there is evidence that human capital–focused services that accompany cash transfers can contribute to better parenting practices, evidence of the impacts on final outcomes, such as reducing malnutrition and stunting, are less strong. An important agenda remains that of strengthening the linkages of programs with education and health and other basic services.

Several countries in Africa also need to overcome the fragmentation in the design and prioritization of subsidy programs across different sectors. For example, school bursaries or health insurance coverage, energy or water tariff subsidies, and/or agricultural subsidies are typically granted according to completely different criteria and to completely different beneficiaries relative to social assistance programs. Going forward, leveraging emerging social protection delivery systems (such as foundational ID and social registries) to identify and assess poor and vulnerable households across and beyond social protection could contribute toward reducing such fragmentation.

Toward a Greater Focus on Urban Areas and Supporting Labor Mobility

Enhancing protection of the population implies a wider policy objective—from the traditional tackling chronic poverty in mostly rural settings toward also addressing increased shock vulnerability and income smoothing in urban settings, especially informal sector workers, and advancing economic transformation. Coverage expansion requires a diversification of instruments, including by mixing traditional social assistance with social insurance programs,