Social protection responses to COVID-19 in Africa
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Date
2021
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Abstract
Most African countries implemented measures to contain the spread of COVID-19
during 2020, such as restrictions on business activity and travel, school closures and
stay-at-home lockdowns for several months. These restrictive policies had adverse
economic and social consequences that triggered a follow-up wave of expansionist
public interventions intended to mitigate these effects. ‘Shock-responsive’ social
protection measures included increased benefits to existing beneficiaries (vertical
expansion) and registration of new beneficiaries on existing programmes (horizontal
expansion). These approaches had the advantages of being quick and administratively
simple, but the disadvantage of bypassing people who were made most vulnerable by
COVID-19, notably retrenched and informal workers with no access to social insurance.
On the other hand, setting up new humanitarian relief or temporary social assistance
programmes was slow and susceptible to targeting errors and corruption. COVID-19
also prompted a reassessment of the social contract regarding social protection, with
some governments recognising that they need to become better coordinated, more
inclusive and rights-based.
Description
Keywords
Social protection, Covid-19, Shock-responsive, Africa, Public health
Citation
Devereux, S. (2021). Social protection responses to COVID-19 in Africa. Global Social Policy, 21(3), 421–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/14680181211021260