Social assistance programmes proliferated and expanded across much of the global South from the mid-1990s. Within Africa there has been enormous variation in this trend: some governments expanded coverage dramatically while others resisted this. The existing literature on social assistance, or...

This 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...

This 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: the Southern Africa and Middle Africa models. It then assesses the contrasting policy processes behind these models and...