SOCIAL POLICY FOR DEVELOPMENT PLANNERS

MODULE V

SOCIAL PROTECTION: DOMAINS, DIMENSIONS, INSTRUMENTS AND TOOLS

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 SOCIAL PROTECTION

INTRODUCTION
This module is concerned with the idea(s) of “social protection,” its multiple meanings, uses,
and diverse types. While it is not unusual to find some writers refer to ‘social protection and
social policy,’ within the framework of the Social Policy for Development Planners course,
social protection refers to the instruments that address the ‘protection’ task of social policy.
In the specific context of the module, we will elaborate on the nature and diversity of social
protection instruments, explore the two dominant approaches to social protection within
the international and African discussion of the term, and examine the implications of the
different approaches for mitigating vulnerability.
Following these, we explore the social protection responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the
African context. In doing this, we draw on different cases to illustrate the diverse ways in
which African countries responded to the pandemic. We use this to reiterate a running
theme in this course—the imperative of a comprehensive social policy approach that aligns
with national and regional development objectives and concerns. It is within this framework
that we explore the imperative of a post-pandemic recovery that is attentive to the
conditions of uncertainty and multiple crises that confronts us.

WHAT IS SOCIAL PROTECTION?

In its 2010 flagship publication, Combating Poverty and Inequality, the UN Research Institute
for Social Development argues that
Protecting people from the vagaries of the market and life’s changing circumstances
is one of the main objectives of social policy. As a key component of social policy,
social protection is concerned with preventing, managing and overcoming situations
that adversely affect people’s well-being.1
While it is not uncommon to hear some use social policy and social protection
interchangeably, it is important to have a more precise understanding of their relationships.
Using the analogy of the nested Russian Doll, social policy is the big doll. Social protection,
as a component of social protection, will be the middle (of smaller) doll. Social assistance
(the non-contributory social provisioning support offered by the public authorities) will
stand for the smallest doll. In this sense, social assistance is a component of social
protection, while social protection is a component of social policy. Social protection
measures are those instruments used to activate the protection task of social policy.
Social protection schemes and programmes are designed to reduce and respond to
vulnerabilities, either ex-post (in other words, after the occurrence of the events that make
people vulnerable) or ex-ante (before the vulnerability occurs). Social protection
programmes seek to reduce people’s exposure to risk or respond to risks where this could

1
UNRISD. 2010. Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics—Flagship
Report. Geneva: UNRISD, p.135.

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not be predicted and enhance people’s capacity to manage economic and social risks. Often
this could be in the form of income loss due to unemployment, social exclusion, illness,
disability, and old age. There are additional risks that make people vulnerable such as
external shocks like weather events, pandemics, etc. The promotion of efficient labour
markets and active labour market policies are other types of social protection measures that
are designed to prevent or mitigate poverty and vulnerability.
How social protection instruments are managed and structured will depend on the
underlining norms that frame the prevalent social policy regime in a country or territory.
Keeping in mind the previous discussions in Modules II and III, we can think of this in terms
of the following:
1. What mechanism frame the provisioning of social protection schemes? In other
words, whether social protection schemes are provided in the context of public
institutional arrangement, left to the market—or designed to be delivered based on
market principles—or something to be provided within the family framework.
2. What coverage principle governs the provision of social protection schemes? Are
they provided to everyone without discrimination, or is the provision framed by the
norms of targeting? This also relates to what we may refer to as “coverage
structure,” which would involve whether the social protection regime is intended to
address all the circumstances of life and vagaries of the market that may leave
people vulnerable to risks of income loss. In this case, the question relates to
whether the social protection regime is designed to be encompassing (throughout
the changing circumstances of life) within the framework of a tax-funded or social
insurance-based provision or the intention is that public support only in cases of
market failure. In other words, is the social protection framework residual?
3. An important aspect to consider is the generosity of social protection schemes,
especially in the context of income replacement. What is the level of income
replacement that is provided, say, in retirement, during periods of unemployment,
income loss because of illness or unforeseen external shocks such as a pandemic?

Types of Social Protection Measures

While it is not uncommon to hear some use social policy and social protection
interchangeably, it is important to have a more precise understanding of their relationships.
Using the analogy of the nested Russian Doll, social policy is the big doll. Social protection,
as a component of social protection, will be the middle (of smaller) doll. Social assistance
(the non-contributory social provisioning support offered by the public authorities) will
stand for the smallest doll. In this sense, social assistance is a component of social
protection, while social protection is a component of social policy. Social protection
measures are those instruments used to activate the protection task of social policy.
Social protection schemes can be in three broad categories. First is social insurance2,
intended to cover a range of needs from illness to unemployment and old age.
Contributions are usually mandatory and may be linked to employment and contributions
related to earning levels. In the cases of the latter, this may involve contributions by

2
https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-insurance.

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employers and by the individual employees. The scheme or social insurance fund may be
managed by the social partners or nationally. Social insurance schemes often work on the
principle of risk-sharing and risk-pooling. This is an important differentiating factor from
individual (or private) insurance even when mandated by legislations. Most private
insurance may be voluntary, but in cases of mandatory individual insurance, risks are
individualised. An example will be market-based, defined contribution schemes based on
individual pension account. In contrast, a pension scheme based on social insurance would
be defined benefit in nature and involve risk pooling.
Social assistance (or safety net) schemes are generally non-contributory schemes or
programmes that offer public support in response to social and economic vulnerability.
Most common social assistance schemes are tax-funded (from the general Fiscus), although
in several African countries many of these schemes are donor-funded. Social assistance
schemes range from income support in terms of transfers in cash, school feeding
programme, emergency aid in the form of transfers-in-kind such as food assistance, etc.
Social assistance can be offered on conditional or unconditional bases. Conditional social
assistance involves beneficiaries meeting specific performance indicators or targets to retain
their access to the transfers provided as part of the social assistance scheme. Conditions
may include ensuring that children of school age are registered in schools and maintain
regular attendance. It may involve ensuring that the children attend clinics for vaccination.
In some instance, especially in the case of public works (workfare) programmes, payment is
made on the condition that members of the household who are capable, participate in
public works programme for a specific duration of time. Transfers may be in cash or kind—
with the latter being in the form of food packages, etc. Unconditional social assistance
schemes do not have any performance or target indicators attached to becoming and
remaining beneficiaries.
Social assistance in the form of emergency assistance is often in response to natural disaster
events, such as floods and earthquakes, that disrupt people’s life and livelihood. Emergency
provision of food and shelter may be offered.
As mentioned earlier, social protection can be defined to respond to vulnerability after the
fact (ex-post) or designed to prevent vulnerability. Social insurance schemes that involve
pre-planned prevention of poverty in old age (retirement schemes). Similarly, and not often
considered as such, are agrarian support schemes designed to smoothen consumption.
Farm subsidy intended to support agricultural production is an example. Also, we have in
some countries programmes that involve farming households selling grains to marketing
boards but who, at a later stage, can buy back grains from the marketing board at the same
price they sold the grain to the board. In this context, the storage facilities provided by the
marketing board constitute a form of socialised or collective storage for the farming
communities.
As we discussed in Modules II and II, coverage and eligibility can be universal, employment-
based or targeted. The targeting itself can be through means-test or proxy means-test,
including the use of communities to select those in the community that will be beneficiaries.
Access may be based on citizenship or residence. In cases of social insurance, access may be
based on prior history of contribution or membership of the scheme. A vital aspect of a
targeted scheme, historically, has been the principle of “deserving poor.” In other words, it

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is not enough that people are poor in other to qualify; they have to be ‘deserving’ in that
they are otherwise not able to provide for themselves.
In the context of the English Poor Law, deserving poor will be considered the ‘impotent
poor’, that may be eligible for public support because they are unable to provide for
themselves through their capacity to labour. The norms of the ‘deserving poor’ persist in the
extent to which conservative policymakers can readily agree to offer public assistance to the
disabled persons, children and people in old age but not for anyone of the working-age, that
is ‘able-bodied.’ The idea of the deserving poor also explains the demanding conditions that
are often imposed on people to qualify for support. In Jeremy Bentham’s infamous dictum,
receiving poor relief has to be to stigmatising to make it “an object of wholesome horror” as
a way of dissuading as many people as possible from seeking the relief.3 A more common
method of stigmatising social assistance is by requiring intending beneficiaries to perform
their poverty—queuing in public view to receive relief, requiring others to certify that they
are sufficiently poor.

COMPETING MODELS OF SOCIAL PROTECTION

There are two dominant models of social protection currently in international so-called
‘development’ circles. These may be referred to as the ILO as against the World Bank
models.

The ILO Social Protection Floor

The defining framework for the ILO social protection model is its Social Protection Floors
Recommendation, 2012 document, referred to as Recommendation No. 202.4 This was
adopted at the 101st Session of the General Conference of the International Labour
Organisation in 2012. The recommendation draws legitimacy from Articles 22 and 25 of the
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights that affirm “the right to social security.” But in
a different sense, the idea of a right to social security has its foundation in the originating
mandate and inspiration for the ILO, which is the oldest of the United Nations agencies.
Among the normative bases of the Social Protection Floor are:
 “Universality of protection, based on social solidarity.”
 Entitlement to benefit should be prescribed in national laws.
 Benefits have to be adequate and predictable.
 Access has to be non-discriminatory, guarantying gender equality and
responsiveness to special needs.
 Solidarity in finance while seeking to achieve an optimal balance between the
responsibilities and interest among those who finance and benefit from social
security schemes…
 Ensuring that social security schemes are coherent with the national social,
economic and development policies, and

3
Jeremy Bentham. 1843. “Tract on Poor Laws and Pauper Management.” In The Works of Jeremy Bentham,
published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843).
4
ILO. 2012. R202—Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202). Geneva: International Labour
Office.

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  Ensuring coherence across institutions responsible for the delivery of social
protection in the country.
The Social Protection Floor, which the ILO member states are admonished to provide are
framed by what it describes as the life cycle approach to social security. This involves:
 Access to a nationally defined set of goods and services, constituting of essential
health care, including maternity care, that meets the criteria of availability,
acceptability and quality.
 Basic income security for children…, providing access to nutrition, education, care
and any other necessary goods and services.
 Basic income security… for persons in active age who are unable to earn sufficient
income…, sickness, unemployment, maternity and disability.
 Basic income security… for older persons.
 In all these cases mentioned above, the basic income security should allow for a life
in dignity.
In the context Recommendation 202, the social protection schemes providing benefits “may
include universal benefit schemes, social insurance schemes, social assistance schemes,
negative tax schemes, public employment schemes and employment support schemes.”
In designing the social protection floors, the Recommendation enjoins member states to
combine schemes (benefits and services) that prevent risks, promote the income-earning
capacity of people. In this sense, the Social Protection Floor system should promote
productive economic and formal employment. The ILO placed an assent on ensuring
coordination of the social security programme with other policies that enhance formal
employment, income generation, education and vocational training, to reduce
precariousness. Active labour market policies that ensure skill upgrading and training are
essential components of a social protection floor.
While the ILO envisages a situation in which a country may require international support in
financing its social protection floor programmes, it gives priority to funding the floor
through national resources. This may require the principle of “progressive realisation” of the
rights. Still, it would be important that a system of comprehensive and adequate national
security system is built progressively and maintained.
The social security system has to cover people in formal and informal economies, ensure
that it aligns with national development plans. Subsequently, the ILO will place increasing
emphasis on ensuring the universal provision of, and access to the social security system. 5
In many ways, the ILO’s Social Protection Floor framework and the focus on ‘social security’
reflect the founding rationale and mandate of the organisation. The conception of ‘labour’ is
primarily in the context of formal (industrial) employment and urban context. The
preference for income maintenance schemes is informed by its OECD foundation and the
dominance of these type of schemes in the national social protection programmes.
In the largely agrarian context of many developing countries (especially in the context of
Middle Africa), smallholder farmers dominate the rural economy, which is home to a large
share of the population. In such context, social protection—intended to smoothen income

5
ILO. 2017. World Social Protection Report 2017-2019: Universal Social Protection to Achieve the Sustainable
Development Goals. Geneva: International Labour Office.

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and consumption of households—may involve alternative policy instruments. These may
include farm production support schemes (supply of seeds, fertilizer, etc. at subsidised
rates), and socialisation of grain storage. In the case of the latter, farming households are
allowed to buy grains back from marketing boards at the same price they initially sold their
farm products to the marketing boards. The intention of this scheme is to facilitate the
smoothening of household consumption across the farming cycle given that vulnerability is
cyclical across the cycle.
While it has faced immense demonisation under the neoliberal regime, food subsidy and
pan-territorial pricing of major consumer items were instruments used in many developing
countries to address the vulnerability of their population. Instruments such as this, and
farming production support schemes are conspicuous for their absence from the social
protection schemes that the ILO Social Protection Floor acknowledges. Policymakers in the
context of development need to be open to a diversity of protection instruments that suit
their local contexts—beyond those acknowledge and recommended by international
agencies.

World Bank’s Safe Net Approach: Stratified, Segmented & Segregated Social Policy
The World Bank’s approach to social protection is within the framework of what can be
described as “stratified, segmented, and segregated social policy” that is inherent in the
neoliberal social policy imagination.6 A stratified social policy involves a hierarchy of
offerings, such as individual health insurance with different plans (benefit options within the
medical insurance scheme) attracting different degrees of financial costs. Stratification
relies on the ability of the person taking up the insurance to pay for the options, reflects
hierarchies in employment, and existing levels of social stratification and inequalities.
Segmented social policy framework tends to go with stratification. Social policy instrument
that is so designed involves multiple and distinct pockets of programmes or schemes. Again,
the plethora of health insurance schemes are an example of segmented social policy.7
However, it is in the segregated social policy instrument that segmentation becomes most
evident. Segregated schemes involve ‘walling off’ social policy offering for the ‘vulnerable’
or ‘deserving poor’. It is in the segregation of social protection schemes specifically for the
‘deserving poor’ that the World Bank’s safety net approach has its defining character. It
stands in contrast to the assent on inclusivity and universal access that is a defining aspect
of the ILO concept of social security or the UNRISD advocacy for universal social protection.8
While safety net social assistance schemes are often passed off as designed to ‘reduce
poverty’ (cf. Slide 12),
Social safety net (SSN)/social assistance (SA) programs are non-contributory
interventions designed to help individuals and households cope with chronic
poverty, destitution, and vulnerability.9

6
Andrew Fischer. 2018. Poverty as Ideology: Rescuing Social Justice from Global Development Agendas.
London: ZED Books.
7
Jimi Adesina. 2020. “Policy Merchandising and Social Assistance in Africa: Don’t Call Dog Monkey for Me.”
Development and Change 51(2): 561-582, p.565.
8
UNRISD, op cit.
9
World Bank. 2018. The State of Safe Nets 2018. Washington DC: World Bank, p.5

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Safety net schemes are differentiated from social insurance (contributory) schemes in that
only with safety net schemes do individuals and households have a claim on the State for
public support. The idea of such schemes being about helping individuals and households
cope with chronic poverty, destitution, and vulnerability is an important marker in
understanding the design of the schemes, their selection (eligibility) criteria, and generosity
of offerings (benefits or services). While in the narrative of the New Poverty Agenda that
dominates the “international development community” safety nets schemes are often
presented as intended to reduce poverty and inequality, they are, in fact, about letting the
poor cope with not poverty as such, but chronic poverty. The value of most safety net
schemes is often below the internationally defined destitution datum line (US$1.90 per
person per day). This is much less than the US$3.10 (in purchasing power parity terms, in
2015 prices) that is the poverty datum line.
Segregated social (public) support schemes require the beneficiaries to be demonstrably not
able to provide for themselves. The selection criteria are often obsessive in seeking to
remove “inclusion errors”—the leakage of benefits to those for which they were not
intended—leads to the very onerous selection procedure.
Safety net, in the context of segregated social policy, may involve conditional or
unconditional cash transfers, food and other in-kind transfers, school feeding programmes,
public works, fee waivers, targeted subsidies, and a range of other interventions supported
by public resources. The defining element is that eligibility is by selective method—limited
to those defined as the ‘deserving poor’ or vulnerable segments of the population.
The social insurance schemes within the World Bank’s social protection imagination are
primarily part of the segmented social policy framework and are managed through the
market. Like all social insurance schemes, they are contributory and “are designed to help
individuals manage sudden changes in income because of old age, sickness, disability, or
natural disaster.”10 In the cases of retirement schemes, preference is given to contributions
to individual retirement accounts, which are managed by private pension fund managers.
Such schemes are “defined contribution” schemes—what you contribute is pre-defined, but
what you get out of it is a function of the performance of the investment of the fund. At
maturity, the market-based schemes would require the purchase of an annuity from which
retirement income is drawn. Unlike in “defined benefits” schemes, there is little or no risk
pooling involved.

Assessment of the Competing Models

The different models of social protection that emerge from the ILO and the World Bank
reflect their ethos and ideational orientations. The ILO model reflects its institutional
mandate and orientation toward social security instruments. The model features a life-cycle
approach to social protection, with a focus on income maintenance and income support.
What it shows, not surprising given the raison d’etre of the ILO, is its blindness to alternative
prophylactic social protection measures such as agrarian support, which has the capacity to
ensure food security, enhance the productive capacity of farming households, and
smoothen consumption throughout the year. This is particularly so when farm subsidy is
supported by collective storage facilities that allow farmers to buy grains back from the

10
Ibid.

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marketing boards in the lean periods of the farming cycle. Also of concern is the idea of
“essential health care” in the Social Protection Floor. In some community health insurance
schemes, “essential health care” provisions have involved the non-coverage of healthcare
needs such as dialysis for patients with renal failure. However, interpreted as a distinction
from “cosmetic” care, the idea of “essential health care” is amenable to an expansive take
on human wellbeing.
The World Bank model of social protection (and social safety net in cases of public
assistance) reflects its neoliberal disposition. It is the basis for a residual take on social
policy, which involves a stratified, segmented, and segregated system of provisioning. The
preference in the model is for market provisioning of services and management of social
insurance funds. It is driven by the restraint on the level of social support that should come
from the Fiscus, something that offers a different norm from the main European and OECD
cases (as we shall see in the next slide). The poverty-centric approach to social safety
net/social assistance is concerned with helping the poor cope with poverty, something that
is an antinomy to the claims of the commitment to poverty reduction. The claim of
“universalism”—an idea that the World Bank has recently lashed onto—is within the
framework of a stratified, segmented, and segregated social policy.
While the ILO and the World Bank’s models of social protection are the dominant framings
of this dimension of social policy, the World Bank’s model remains dominant. The Bank and
Western donor countries, bilateral agencies, and UN agencies such as UNICEF have relative
consensus in their commitment to the safety net approach to social protection. This has
become the dominant model of social protection that has been imposed on or offered to
African countries for adoption.
Often, built into the safety net schemes is the principle of ‘graduation’—that beneficiaries
receive support and are ‘encouraged’ to graduate out of being recipients of the social
assistance benefits or services. The paradox in the model of social protection that is offered
to African countries (and other Global South countries) is that both in terms of the effort to
limit the outlays from the Fiscus to support social assistance and the idea of graduation, this
is at variance with the experience and practice in most OECD countries. Public social
expenditure accounts for more than 30 per cent of the GDP in countries such as France and
Finland; over 24 per cent of the GDP in countries ranging from Portugal to Sweden, Belgium,
and Germany. In countries such as Norway and Sweden, social protection benefits (transfers
in cash), such as the Child Benefit, are paid to households regardless of the income of the
household.
Even in countries with social policy regimes that are close to or of the Liberal Welfare
regime variant, fiscal welfare offers a higher level of benefits than public welfare offers. For
instance, in Brazil in 2013, Bolsa Familia social assistance (public welfare) scheme paid
US$176.5 per annum per capita on youth and children that are covered. By contrast, those
filing personal income returns (middle-income households to the wealthiest) received
annual tax breaks for dependents at an average of US$858.7 per capita. In South Africa, the
tax deduction for retirement contributions for the 3.6 million assessed taxpayers was an
average of R50 636.87 per person per annum in 2018. This was more than two-and-half
times what people on older person grants received in the social grant benefit.11

11
Adesina (2020) op.cit

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Most important is that segregated social assistance schemes, in contrast to nationally
inclusive schemes, often create an institutional mechanism that makes only a small
proportion of the population visible for public social provisioning. The effect, in the context
of the sudden outbreak of a pandemic, is that most of the population is invisible, and the
institutional framework for reaching them is limited.

SOCIAL PROTECTION IN THE CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY AND CRISES

As we confront the context of multiple crises and uncertainty, there are lessons that we can
learn from how well most African countries responded to the last pandemic—the Covid-19
pandemic. There are lessons to be learnt from the norms that underpin a country’s social
policy architecture, the synergies between social and economic policies, and the robustness
of its capacity to respond to external shocks. We draw on the lessons of Covid response to
draw lessons for how countries can respond to emerging contexts of uncertainty and
multiple crises.
The livelihood impact of the measures to mitigate the effects of the pandemic –for both
informal sector operatives that depend on daily revenue intakes and for employees in the
formal economy who were furloughed—the pandemic represents an important stress test
for the efficacy of the social protection architecture in place. It also reveals the
responsiveness of public authorities and creativity in responding to the pandemic.
Social protection schemes are intended to protect against the vagaries of the market and
the life cycle and respond to external shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Even where
the impact on the health system was milder than initially projected, the livelihood impact
was more severe. This is particularly so for those in informal employment (located in the
precarious labour market) and operating in the informal economy. Those in informal
employment are usually the first to lose their jobs, even in the formal sector or unable to
secure employment because of the downturn in business activities. The informal sector
operatives, who depend on daily income receipt from their economic activities, were
particularly hard hit by the restrictions in movement and large-scale gatherings. The level of
informality in the economy will have implications for the share of the population affected.
The extent to which a country’s social protection system depends on social insurance or
safety net social assistance for addressing vulnerability will matter. In social protection
systems that rely on a highly restrictive definition of the vulnerable population that would
receive social assistance before the pandemic, the social registers that some countries relied
upon for rolling out social support would be too restrictive in its coverage. More
importantly, most of those who faced livelihood vulnerability because of the pandemic—for
instance, those in informal employment or informal sector operatives—would not have
qualified for inclusion in the social registers before the pandemic. Often, the result was a
misalignment between the social registers and the newly vulnerable. Even in cases such as
Togo, where creative use of platform technology was used to provide social assistance, the
share of those covered was small relative to the number that applied for assistance.
Significantly, as well, the norms of the generosity of the transfers in cash (as the
predominant social assistance instrument) will matter for mitigating the livelihood impact of
the pandemic. Where the amount provided for individuals in social assistance is less that the
nationally determined poverty level or the daily rate is less than the price of a loaf of bread,
the well-being of the vulnerable individuals is in significant jeopardy.

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The case of Nigeria is illustrative of the inadequate reach of a pre-pandemic social
protection system that is based on the norms of segregated social policy. The date on the
slide is from the national longitudinal surveys undertaken by the National Bureau of
Statistics for May, August, and November 2020. Among other things, the surveys sought to
determine (a) the share of adults in the population that went without eating for a whole day
in the 30 days before each survey and (b) the proportion of the households that ran out of
food in the 30 days before the surveys. Against these, the surveys sought to determine the
share of the population surveyed that received food assistance and cash transfers. The food
assistance received was from all the available sources during the pandemic—government
(national, state, and local), non-governmental organisations, including voluntary religious
organisations, etc.
The left-hand chart shows a significant increase in the rates of adults in a household that
went without food for a whole day in the preceding 30 days and the households that ran
out of food in the 30 days before the surveys. The dotted blue lines, on the left charts, are
the rate for both indicators of hunger drawn from the General Household Surveys from
2018/2019 surveys. The share of adults in households that went without eating for a whole
day was 25 per cent in May 2020, 33 per cent in August 2020, and 18 per cent in November
2020. Even the percentage share in November 2020 was more than double the rate in
2018/2019.
The share of households that ran out of food was 58 per cent in May 2020, 59 per cent in
August 2020, and 48 per cent in November 2020. In each wave of the surveys, the rate of
hunger under the pandemic was significantly higher than the 2018/2019 baseline.
Significant for the efficacy of the social protection response is the right-hand chart on the
slide. While in May 2020, some 58 per cent of the population ran out of food in the 30 days
preceding, only 12.3 per cent received any food assistance and only 2.2 per cent received
any cash transfer. The situation would become more dire in the remaining two waves of the
survey. In August, while the share of the surveyed households that ran out of food in the 30
days before the survey increased to 59.2 per cent, only 4.1 per cent received any food
assistance, and only 1.2 per cent received any cash transfer. In November 2020, while the
share of the surveyed households that ran out of food declined to 48 per cent, the
assistance in kind and cash declined even more. Only 1.2 per cent received any food
assistance, and only 0.2 per cent received any cash transfer. These suggest an utter failure
of the social assistance system to adequately respond to the challenges of the pandemic; a
failure that is a result of the norms and design of the pre-pandemic social assistance
framework.

Antinomies of segregated social policy

The objective of a social protection programme is to protect people in periods of adversity
and external shocks, such as the pandemic. A country’s social protection framework would
range from non-contributory transfers in cash and kind—funded from the fiscus—to
contributory social insurance schemes. A social insurance scheme, such as medical
insurance or pension/provident fund scheme, may be managed through the market-based
programme or in a non-individualised market framework. National insurance schemes are
often managed under the control of public authorities; generally, it would involve a much
larger pool of resources than in cases of segmented social insurance schemes. The degree of

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solidarity and risk-sharing built into a social insurance scheme will depend on whether it is
market-oriented and managed privately.
In South Africa’s case, the mitigation of vulnerability, funded through the unemployment
insurance scheme (a national insurance scheme), offered a more generous benefits level
than the social assistance scheme. The amount paid out in the Social Relief of Distress—a
cash transfer schemes specifically rolled out in response to the pandemic—was R350 per
month (or R11.66 per day). This is below the R642 per month nationally determined food
poverty level or the daily price of a loaf of bread.
While income support is essential in the context of loss of income, such as under the
restrictions imposed to control the pandemic, what the social assistance-based responses
indicate are the antinomies of the segregated social policy. In the context of neoliberal
politics and policy regime, the approach to social assistance (non-contributory public
support for ‘the vulnerable’), access was couched in the language of the demonstrably
“deserving poor,” extreme poverty, and safety net. This approach to social protection is
built on the idea that the primary port of call for securing social protection is the market.
Healthcare is to be offered based on private insurance for services provided by private
hospitals or public facilities run, increasingly, on the model of modified private outfits. The
so-called community-based health insurance schemes are offered to the low-income
segment of the population on the presumption that there can be no “free lunch.”
Public social assistance is offered based on a highly restrictive selection limited to the
‘deserving poor.’ While sold as an ‘anti-poverty’ measure, the core antinomy of such
segregated social policy is that they do not even pretend to be about poverty reduction. The
proxy measure of generosity that we employed in this write-up seeks to match benefit
levels to the cost of a loaf of (500-grams) of bread. In each of the three cases that we
consider, the benefit levels fall far short of the cost of a loaf of bread. An individual who is
asked to subsist on a loaf of bread may not die of hunger, but the amount on offer cannot
be considered sufficient for an adequate level of consumption, much less the need for
housing and clothing. Yet international and national agencies continue to celebrate what is,
in effect, grossly inadequate provisions to support basic, much less, decent living.
An antinomy of the segregated social policy scheme—that the Bretton Woods institutions
and ‘donor’ bilateral and multilateral agencies continue to sell to Africa—is in that it results
in an institutional vacuum. A population that is required to source its social provision from
the market or through the family network does not require the construction of the national
institutional architecture necessary to respond to the adverse livelihood impact of a
pandemic. Even in creative efforts such as in Togo and South Africa to create new lines of
income support, the countries have had to rely on non-social protection population
databases to identify and reach the population in need of assistance.
A third antinomy of the segregated social policy is the extent to which it is “informal sector
blind.” While the informal sector is legible to economic and labour statisticians, it is blind to
a national framework for social welfare support and provisioning. While it is understood
that the adverse livelihood impact falls disproportionately on informal sector operatives, the
key social assistance instruments used in such contexts as Nigeria and South Africa were
ineffective for reaching the informal sector operatives. The HUP programme was not
designed to cover informal sector operatives. When creative efforts are made to reach the
sector, evidence suggests that only a fraction of the population in need is reached. In talking

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of the informal economy here, we have in mind smallholder farmers as well. The
subsistence needs of smallholder farmers depend on maintaining the supply chain of
various services and commodities that would have been disrupted by the pandemic.
Even with its relatively low health impact, a lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic is the need to
transcend the regime of stratified, segmented, and segregated social policy that has been
sold and vigorously imposed on the continent.12 Building back better in the post-Covid-19
context requires a fundamental rethinking of Africa’s social policy architecture—away from
the segregated social policy framework. It would require a return to a more comprehensive
social policy framework. Social insurance architecture requires publicly managed national
insurance schemes. A publicly managed national social insurance scheme, as we see in the
case of South Africa, is vital for protecting jobs and livelihood. This is antithetical to the
neoliberal segregated, market-centric approach to social policy limits.

RETHINKING SOCIAL PROTECTION IN CONTEXT OF UNCERTAINTY AND CRISES

The lessons from the experience of the pre-pandemic system of stratified, segmented, and
segregated social policy for responses to the pandemic draws attention to thinking beyond
the pre-pandemic social policy architecture. The system of residual social protection that
assumes that individuals will meet their social provision needs through the market also
restricts the range of social policy instruments that is available to the public authorities for
the active effort at protecting the wellbeing of people. Public assistance has been restricted
largely to transfers in cash, and such transfers are set so low to allow the “poor to cope with
poverty” rather than reduce poverty. In addition to the active engagement with and use of a
wider set of social policy instruments to protect the wellbeing of the population, there is a
need for a higher idea of human worth that should underpin the post-pandemic recovery—
a building back that should be inclusive, resilient, and sustainable.
The range of social protection instruments should include agrarian support mechanisms—
upstream, farm-level, and downstream support for family households—to equitable access
to quality healthcare. The transfers in cash need to be pegged to a level of adequacy
necessary to meet a dignified living. What this point to is the need to transcend the
prevailing system of stratified, segmented, and segregated social policy that has become
dominant in most parts of Africa.
What this calls for is the rethinking of the state-society compact. This calls for re-purposing
the state and “how the state thinks.” Underpinning the relatively poor responses to the
pandemic is the pre-pandemic ways in which the state thought of its relationship with its
citizens/residents. A state that thinks of its citizens/residents as a fiscal burden would
grudgingly do the least it can do in protecting the wellbeing of its citizens. By contrast, a
state that is actively engaged with its citizens and has a sense of obligation to robust
protection of their wellbeing is likely to secure the allegiance of its citizens and their sense
of their obligations towards it. It is a state-citizen compact that transcends the ‘residual’
approach to social policy. Such a state is also likely to be more active in driving the
developmental project of the country and least likely to take on the role of a “night
watchman state.” The social compact that emerges between the state and its

12
Jimi Adesina. 2020. Policy Merchandising and Social Assistance in Africa: Don’t Call Dog Monkey for Me.”
Development & Change 51(2): 561-6582.

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citizens/residents is fundamental for driving an inclusive and sustainable post-pandemic
recovery.
What the post-pandemic recovery calls for is a shift toward a transformative approach to
social policy—something that we will explore in greater detail in Module IX. It is a take on
social policy that seeks to undergird the development agenda and process with the
enhancement of the productive capacity of people through public investment in the human
capital of the citizens/residents and pushes for the developmental imperative that makes
human wellbeing sustainable. The development process involving the structural
transformation of the economy and society is one that is underpinned by an ecologically
sustainable industrial capacity. This itself must be anchored in a robust investment in the
national system of innovation.
The development process itself has to be underpinned by the de-informalisation of the
economy and the expansion of productive employment involving decent jobs. These have
the additional benefit of improving tax revenue needed for supporting economic and social
projects and expanding the social insurance schemes in support of a robust social protection
architecture.
All the above need to be anchored on an active project of redressing gender inequities that
undermine women’s life chances, opportunities, and access to social services. A post-
pandemic recovery will be nothing if it is not gendered, equitable and transformative.

RECOMMENDED READINGS
Jimi Adesina. 2020. “Policy Merchandising and Social Assistance in Africa: Don’t Call Dog
Monkey for Me.” Development and Change 51(2): 561-582, p.565.
Andrew Fischer. 2018. Poverty as Ideology: Rescuing Social Justice from Global Development
Agendas. London: ZED Books.
HRW/JEI. 2021. ‘Between Hunger and the Virus’: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on
People Living in Poverty in Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos: Human Rights Watch/Justice &
Empowerment Initiatives–Nigeria.
ILO. 2012. Resolution 202—Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202).
Geneva: International Labour Office.
ILO. 2017. World Social Protection Report 2017-2019: Universal Social Protection to Achieve
the Sustainable Development Goals. Geneva: International Labour Office.
Thandika Mkandawire. 2005. “Targeting and Universalism in Poverty Reduction.” Social
Policy and Development Programme Paper No, 23. Geneva: UNRISD.
UNECA. 2022. Addressing Poverty and Vulnerability in Africa During the COVID-19 Pandemic
– Economic Report on Africa – ERA 2021. Addis Ababa: UNECA.
UNRISD. 2010. Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and
Politics—Flagship Report. Geneva: UNRISD, p.135.
World Bank. 2018. The State of Safe Nets 2018. Washington DC: World Bank.

Module IV: Social Protection Page 14 of 17

QUIZ

1. Social Protection is concerned with in relation to risks and situations that adversely
affect people:
a. Preventing
b. Managing
c. Overcoming
d. All of the above
2. Social Protection refers to a sub-set of programmes, schemes or instruments of
social policy designed for sustaining human wellbeing.
a. Yes
b. No
3. Social protection programmes should be concerned with reducing poverty and
vulnerability:
a. Yes
b. No
4. Different types of social protection schemes may include:
a. Social insurance
b. Individual Insurance
c. Social Assistance
d. All of the above.
5. Ex-ante social protection schemes seek to respond to vulnerability after they might
have occurred.
a. Yes
b. No
6. Social Assistance schemes may be
a. Conditional
b. Unconditional
c. In the form of Emergency Assistance
d. All of the above
7. Social insurance schemes may be in the form of emergency social assistance
a. Yes
b. No
8. The Social Protection Floor Recommendation (No. 202) was adopted at
a. The 2010 UN General Assembly
b. The 101st Session of the ILO General Conference in 2012
c. At the World Bank/IMF 2011 Summer Gathering
d. At the 2011 AU Heads of State Summit

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 9. The framing norms of the ILO Social Protection Floor include:
a. Universality of protection, based on social solidarity
b. Non-discrimination
c. Adequacy and predictability
d. All of the above
10. The ILO Social Protection Floor adopts a life cycle approach to social security
a. Yes
b. No
11. The recommended social protection schemes in the ILO Social Protection Floor
include:
a. Universal benefit schemes
b. Social Insurance Schemes
c. Employment support schemes
d. All of the above
12. The World Bank’s approach to social protection includes:
a. Social Assistance
b. Social Insurance
c. Labour market programmes
d. All of the above
13. Public support for social provisioning under the World Bank’s social protection
programme is limited to social safety net schemes:
a. Yes
b. No
14. Eligibility for, and access to, safety net schemes under the World Bank’s programme
is universal:
a. Yes
b. No
15. The social assistance (in-kind and in cash) provided in Nigeria to address the impact
of the Covid-19 pandemic adequately addressed the problem of hunger in the
country.
a. Yes
b. No
16. Social Safety Net (in-cash) transfer in cases discussed were usually sufficient to
reduce poverty:
a. Yes
b. No
17. The post-pandemic recovery requires a significant rethinking of the existing social
protection model for an inclusive outcome:
a. Yes
b. No

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 18. The stratified, segmented and segregated social policy architecture tends to reduce
the level of inequality:
a. Yes
b. No
19. A lesson of the Covid-19 pandemic is that we should focus social protection on the
safety net approach.
a. Yes
b. No
20. Addressing gender inequalities must be a central part of the post-pandemic social
policy recovery.
a. Yes
b. No

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