The ideas, practicalities, and challenges of establishing effective social protection in Africa are steadily, if somewhat slowly, gaining notice in both policy-making forums and mainstream social policy analysis. The world’s second largest and populous continent, Africa is also its poorest region, with chronic poverty, vulnerabilities, and preventable hardship. Despite some significant developments in social welfare interventions and outcomes since the turn of the century, the policy agenda and dynamics in most countries remain complex and tenuous, arguably more so than other lower and middle income (LMIC) regions. This special edition contributes to a critical analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing social protection systems in Africa. It also seeks to examine the extent to which the staple explanatory concepts of welfare dynamics in the northern and western hemispheres – the role of actors, ideas, and institutions – need to be modified or adapted when analysing welfare dynamics in Africa. The focus is on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) rather than the more diverse and heterogeneous Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. While, it is important to acknowledge that SSA nations are also distinct and varied; nevertheless, they share important characteristics in terms of historical contexts, average incomes, development outcomes, and most relevant for the purpose of this analysis, social policy strategies, and challenges.

Social policy scholars seeking to understand the dynamics of social protection arrangements have advocated for an actor-centric approach. However, when seeking to understand the impact of colonialism on social policymaking, most scholars have focused not on actors but on ideas and institutions. To address this gap, this paper develops an actor-centric framework for understanding the introduction of social policies in colonial contexts. We identify and compare actor constellations of relevance to the introduction of social policies in two colonies of French West Africa that differ with respect to precolonial population density: Dahomey (present-day Benin), with a relatively high precolonial population density, and Côte d’Ivoire, with a relatively low precolonial population density. Despite evidence that precolonial population density can shape colonial strategies and policies, the results provide no supporting evidence that precolonial population density is a driver of meaningful variation in the introduction of social policies or in the composition of the actor constellations from which they originate. Instead, the results point to the key role of transnational and regional actors in the introduction of social policies in colonial contexts. They also highlight the domestic economic and societal arenas as sites where: i) heterogeneity emerges in the social policy actor constellations; and ii) local actors mediate tensions arising from imperially driven social transformations.

Although there is a growing literature on transnational ideational processes in sub-Saharan Africa, the linkages between local, national, and transnational actors and ideas in African social policy would gain from more systematic mapping. In this paper, we explore what we call the “scales of ideational policy influence” by sketching a multi-level, actor-centric, and institutionalist perspective on ideational policy influence at the local, national, and transnational scales. This discussion leads to analysis of how these scales interact in terms of specific ideas and how both governmental and non-governmental actors seek to impact social policy decisions in sub-Saharan Africa. To illustrate the three scales of ideational influence and their interaction, the paper turns to the making of poverty reduction policies in Ghana. We show how policy ideas move from the global level to a national and subnational level using ideational mechanisms aided by the institutional position of actors and material factors.

Social protection has expanded unevenly across Africa because of variations in both the initial adoption of programmes and their subsequent ‘institutionalisation’ through government-funded expansions in coverage. The case of Zambia illustrates how policy coalitions promoting the institutionalisation of social protection compete with other claimants over prioritisation in public spending. Even when faced with competitive elections, incumbent governments may prioritise other programmes over social protection. In Zambia, the incumbent government announced and budgeted for a massive government-funded expansion of social protection but failed to allocate the necessary funding – with the result that benefits were not paid to registered beneficiaries. If ‘institutionalisation’ is understood as entailing the political irreversibility of expansion, then the rhetoric of institutionalisation belied the reality (for several years) of retrenchment. The weakened policy coalition supporting social protection was unable to prevent government defunding as scarce government resources were allocated to competing programmes.

Child nutrition, health and development are closely tied to maternal nutrition, health and well-being. The underlying drivers of poor maternal and child nutritional outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa are structural in nature. These risks include social, economic, and environmental factors that together compound vulnerability to poor outcomes. Poverty, as a driver of poor maternal and child health outcomes, is an important determinant that is both a cause and a consequence of malnutrition. The United Nations’ Children’s Fund (UNICEF)’s conceptual model for determinants of maternal and child nutrition outcomes released in 2020, is the agency’s latest iteration of child nutrition frameworks. The model identifies the underlying causes of malnutrition as extending beyond food and diets, to include household level dynamics, maternal factors, and the external environment. The manuscript discusses UNICEF’s conceptual model and its applicability in sub-Saharan Africa. It also considers the evidence on interventions aimed at addressing maternal and child nutrition in the region and the location of social protection among these policy tools, with a special focus on the extent to which these resonate with the conceptual model. It concludes by considering the conditions required for social protection instruments to work in the region and similar settings in the Global South. In this way, the manuscript provides a critical reflection about the role of social protection as a nutrition-sensitive instrument in sub-Saharan Africa, in the context of maternal and child nutrition outcomes.

The role of external actors has now been widely acknowledged in shaping social policy processes in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the social policy roles and influence of philanthropic donors have been less recognised and examined. As various countries in the region seek to expand social policy implementation and delivery and revitalise the development of national welfare systems, it is important to better understand the roles and functions of philanthropic donor agencies in the processes of agenda-setting, financing, and delivery of social policy. This article discusses the complex social policy functions held by philanthropic donor agencies in sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of the “welfare mix,” drawing attention to the divergencies and convergences between Western philanthropic donors and their African counterparts, while reflecting on the direction of future research agendas.

Nigeria is home to a significant and growing “youth” population, over a third of it below 24 years of age. The demographic potential for productivity and growth this group represents occurs alongside large-scale unemployment among young people of working age. The “unemployment crisis” has deep historical roots and exists within a wider context of poor governance, insecurity, conflict, and poverty. Policy norms and practices to address youth unemployment in Nigeria largely centre on skill development and job creation, with complementary schemes selectively targeted to specific groups of vulnerable and poor individuals. Measures are typically ad hoc, detached from a coherent programme of sustainable reform. Pre-existing structural factors and capacity constraints also shape the effectiveness of these programmes. While a productivist focus within current policy is potentially empowering in giving young Nigerians “worker” status, it also detracts from attending to deep-rooted structural problems seen to affect young people in disproportionate ways. Securing meaningful choices and lives for Nigerian youth requires reframing youth unemployment beyond labour markets alone, and embedded in ideas of equality and collective action.