Web Seminar Report Social Protection in Southern Africa:

The Role of Social Protection and Emergency Response to COVID-19

(Held in Honour of Helmut Elischer, FES Zambia Resident Director)

21 July 2020

Introduction

The Southern African Social Protection Experts Network (SASPEN) is a non-profit network of

stakeholders including scholars, consultants and practitioners committed to promoting, fostering,

expanding and improving social protection in Southern Africa and beyond. SASPEN was founded on

May 15, 2012 at the initiative of the regional working line of the social compact and the social justice

of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Zambia, in collaboration with senior social security resource persons

in Southern Africa. SASPEN made its footprint in social protection in Southern Africa, through the

technical and financial support of FES.

Since its inception, SASPEN has experienced notable milestones, which would not have been

possible without the support of FES Zambia under the leadership of Helmut Elischer who joined FES

Zambia as the resident director in 2013. It is during his reign that FES supported the work and

growth of the network enabling the founding of SASPEN, institutionalisation, development of its first

strategy plan 2020-2022 and the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement with SASPEN for the

period 2020-2022. To date, SASPEN continues to receive technical and financial support from FES as

it transitions to becoming an independent and self-sustaining institution.

FES Zambia works to advocate for social protection policy change ensuring that rights-based legal

frameworks on social protection are put into effect and made justiciable and enforceable, promoting

social justice and inclusivity in the provision of social protection. It is also during Helmut’s reign as

resident director, that the FES Zambia programme expanded its focus to include regional and

continental programing in sub-Saharan Africa and the continental rights-based social protection

project.

Helmut Elischer joined the FES Zambia team seven years ago and he has now left to join FES

Bangladesh in Asia. He left at a time that made it impossible to give him a most deserved farewell;

simultaneously this created an opportunity to reflect on the significance of social justice in Africa. In

honour of his phenomenal work, contributions and support in advancing social protection and social

justice in the region, SASPEN hosted a web seminar on “Social Protection in Southern Africa: The

Role of Social Protection and Emergency Response to COVID-19.”

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, several Southern African countries shut their borders, imposed

stay-at-home orders, and in some cases, enforced quarantines. This exposed inequalities and the

level of poverty affecting most vulnerable groups. It is impossible for many who live in informal

settlements to adhere to social distancing and self-isolate under the conditions in which they live.

Further, for children and youth who do not have access to TV or internet at home, online learning

remained a luxury. Governments responded through various social protection approaches, however

not all approaches have been inclusive and addressed human rights concerns. Restrictions of

movement of people led to the closure of non-essential businesses with negative outcomes on

labour markets, particularly the informal sector. Migrants, on the other hand, had been left out of

responses, yet they also faced the same health and socio-economic threats as host populations.

The web seminar was held on 21st July, 2020, bringing together some of SASPEN's leading social

protection experts who shared perspectives on the topic and reflected on lessons for inclusive social

protection in response to COVID-19 in Southern Africa. The overall objective was to review regional

experiences of governments' and non-state actors' social protection responses in addressing and

mitigating COVID-19.

This report puts together proceedings of the web seminar, focusing on the key highlights and policy

recommendations.

Session 1

Presentations

The Role of Social Protection and Response to COVID-19: Implications for the World of

Work Prof Evance Kalula- University of Cape Town

Key Highlights

I. COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on livelihoods, affecting millions of vulnerable

workers and enterprises. Massive loss of jobs essentially raises social protection issues, as

social protection is at the centre of the world of work.

II. The latest ILO Monitor estimates a 14% drop in working hours globally, which equalled to

loss of 400 million full time jobs.

III. It is expected that the labour market recovery will be uncertain and the effects will be most

pronounced on employment.

IV. The impact of COVID-19 has not been fully appreciated in Africa with only a few countries

responding, providing social protection measures in the world of work, however these

responses have not been adequate in addressing the impact of COVID-19 in the world of

work. Countries identified in providing social protection in response to COVID-19 include

Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa.

V. Countries in Europe are targeting both big and small enterprises in the provision of social

protection.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Informal Workers - A Southern African Perspective Dr Laura Alfers – Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)

Key Highlights

I. Informal workers livelihoods have been negatively impacted, inclusive of inability to access

markets, decreased demand for services and products, increasing costs of inputs and

operations, as well as the stigmatisation of informal workers as spreaders of disease.

II. Many of these impacts are expected to be long term in seriously affected sectors such as

tourism and domestic work.

III. Southern Africa’s informal economy was seen to be quite different from the rest of sub

Saharan Africa, in that; It is the only region with half of the employed population in informal

employment (40%), Informal employees represent 84.3% of total informal employment vs.

40% for the rest of sub Saharan Africa.

IV. Disaggregated findings WIEGOs impact assessment report (April 2020) showed that work in

private households in South Africa makes up 38% of women’s informal work in the 8 major

metropolitan areas, but only 7% of men’s informal work.

V. The report also found that women workers were hardest hit both in formal and informal

employment, with a noted increase in the burden of care for women workers particularly

around child care with school closures.

VI. Typical earnings of the self-employed in the same period (April 2020) dropped by over 60% and

a further 10% at 70% for women.

VII. Overall, the social protection response from African governments has been mute and huge

losses of not only employment but also huge losses of earnings amongst the self-employed in

the informal economy and women, has been recoded.

Migration, Human Mobility and Public Health Considerations: COVID-19 and Beyond Mr Jason Theede- International Organization for Migration (IOM)

I. COVID-19 has had unprecedented health, social-economic and protection impacts on

migrants. Various travel restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19 have had a severe impact

on jobs and livelihoods for millions of Africans relying on cross-border mobility, leading to a

decline in migrant remittances and infringement on human rights of many.

II. There has been a loss of livelihoods for return migrant workers in a context where countries of

origin may not be able to absorb them in the local labour market, further exacerbating

challenges related to unemployment and underemployment in the region.

III. The shrinking space of labour migration in destination countries and the anticipated rise of the

cost of migration will push migrant workers to the informal sector in countries of origin or

force them to re-immigrate through irregular channels. Those unable to cross international

borders to seek protection including refugees may be sent back to danger or the risk of

persecution in their country of origin.

IV. Migrants and travellers are not more vulnerable to disease risk, however conditions in which

migration and travel takes place often results in increased vulnerabilities, i.e undocumented

migrants and asylum seekers fear approaching health facilities for fear of detention and

deportation, while those working in the informal economy have limited or no access to social

protection measures.

V. Women migrants and girls face higher risks of exposure to gender -based violence, abuse and

exploitation.

VI. The fear of COVID-19 is already exacerbating high levels of xenophobia, racism and

stigmatisation with possible attacks against refugees and migrants.

VII. The disease spread is intrinsically linked with population mobility which is also considered to

be part of the solution

VIII. Exclusion is costly in the long-run, whereas inclusion pays off for everyone.

Financing Social Protection Programmes Dr Gift Dafuleya - University of Venda

I. Social assistance is tax financed, while social insurance is mostly contributory, through

employee and employer contributions and rare instances in some African countries from

government subsidies.

II. Compared to other regions, most people are not covered by social protection

programmes in Africa. We mostly have social assistance compared to social insurance.

This shows that if we are to improve the reach of social protection, we need to

concentrate on social assistance programmes. Social assistance and social insurance still

need quite a lot of work to be institutionalised.

III. The financing of social assistance in Africa has been mostly a positivist approach,

examining the social assistance spending practice across a range of countries. These

countries are used to benchmark the social assistance expenditure for the countries in

question. Less implemented is the normative approach which starts from micro or from

transfers per person needed to lift the poor out of poverty and then escalates the

funding needed until we reach/see or inform the percentage of GDP that is needed at

macro-finance level.

IV. Because the discourse in the financial assistance of social assistance in Africa follows a

positivist approach, the analysis of financing is consequently restricted to spending as a

percentage of GDP. This approach does not provide for social protection policies.

V. However, if we start analysing our social assistance expenditure per poor person in

Africa, we start to see that these are very low. Over 85% of the African countries have

social assistance transfers per poor person per year which do not exceed US$150.

Nevertheless, the continent does have high spenders, who spend US$ 900 on social

assistance transfers per poor person per year.

VI. Sensitising ourselves to this shift definitely moves us away from the macro level financial

analysis which is your percentage spending as a GDP only, to a meso level/micro level

analysis to the social assistance programme budget as well as transfers per poor person.

Such analysis is very important even for social protection measures in the context

COVID-19.

Session 2

Selected Legal Perspectives on Access to Social Protection in a COVID-19 Context: A South African Case Study Prof Marius Olivier - Institute for Social Law and Policy

1; Source: UNDP COVID-19: Compilation of Social Protection Measures and Resources of Relevance to Sub-Saharan Africa (1 June 2020)

I. Despite the relative limited social assistance framework or network in Africa, the initiatives

that we have seen since COVID-19 in Africa have been mainly in the area of social assistance.

II. The expansion of social assistance arrangements which has been the mainstay of COVID-19

measures in sub Saharan Africa and Africa as a whole, have come from a very low base, from

a perspective of very low range on number of people and percentage covered by social

assistance.

III. Zimbabwe has seen an additional coverage of 28% to informal workers and yet the transfer

value remains low.

IV. South Africa declared a national state of disaster and introduced a special COVID-19 Social

Relief of Distress Grant for a six-month period and that has been a subject of important

judgement in relation to migrants in South Africa.

V. The government has also provided financial relief to businesses, in particular SMEs:

application of BBBEE criteria under the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of

2003, advancing transformation.

VI. Access to social assistance (Special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress), excludes

permit holders (from Angola, Lesotho, Zimbabwe) and asylum seekers with valid

permits. According to the courts this is unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.

VII. There have been initiatives in South Africa to exclude foreigners from certain parts of the

labour market, very recently a quota system has been introduced even though the courts

have made it clear that you cannot exclude asylum seekers and refugees from access to

employment not even self-employment.

VIII. It is clear that the courts are trying to uphold the supremacy of the constitution but also

binding international law obligations.

IX. Interesting reflection by the court in one of the judgements on the importance of

government upholding a social contract that COVID-19.

Gender Perspectives Prof Ruth Ngeyi Kanyongolo - University of Malawi

I. It is common knowledge that there is pre-existing discrimination and inequalities between

men and women, in most cases women are negatively or adversely affected by events.

COVID-19 has brought new challenges, which are being experienced differently between

men and women. It is very important that as we are looking at responding to COVID-19, we

are able to appreciate and come up with responses that reflect the gendered experiences

and gendered differentials.

II. Now that most schools have been closed and health systems have been overburdened,

there is an increase in demand for home based care. It is therefore becoming common that

most women, who were already overburdened with care, are increasingly becoming even

more burdened.

III. Over 75% of the Health workforce is female. Statistics further show that in some countries 9

out of 10 nurses are female and therefore the number of women that are exposed to COVID-

19 is quite high.

IV. Statics show that more men are dying of COVID-19 than women. Leaving families that are

more dependent on male breadwinners more vulnerable and therefore this increases the

vulnerability of women in providing for their families. I.e. in Malawi, there have been 62

deaths (as at day of the web seminar), of the 62 deaths, 52 are men and 10 are women. This

shows the gendered difference in the impact of COVID-19 deaths.

V. Studies by care international and UNWOMEN consistently shows increasing cases of GBV in

the homes during lockdown and at the same time the response channels to GBV have

slowed systems in responding to GBV cases.

VI. Women are affected adversely with the drop of income levels as women are the majority in

the informal sector.

VII. Closure of schools has resulted in increased number of girls getting pregnant. Girls do not

have access to sexual and reproductive health information and other facilities and as a result

there are increased numbers of girls getting pregnant. There is also an increase in cases of

child labour, which in most cases can translate to the girl child, being given more chores in

the household.

VIII. Most countries are responding through COVID-19 taskforces, yet most of them do not have

a gendered representation, therefore decisions made are not always responsive to the

needs of women.

IX. Most information on COVID-19 being shared on online platforms is not available to the

majority of women in rural areas who have limited access to technology/smart phones.

Demographic Impacts Dr John Mushomi - University of Pretoria

I. As a result of the lockdown and focus on addressing COVID-19 at the expense of other health

services, it is expected that in the next one year there will be an increase in unwanted

pregnancies and in the short term, increased cases of GBV in South Africa.

II. During COVID - 19 crisis women & children have been more exposed to other illnesses.

III. Health care focus had diverted towards COVID - 19 neglecting other services such as like

HIV/AIDS and maternal health.

IV. Rural-urban migrants have been the worst hit by the COVID-19 with the loss of employment,

discrimination and lockdown restrictions. Further rural - urban migrants have limited social

ties with extended family and community which are primary providers of social protection.

V. International migrants will and have been equally affected with return migration to

countries of origin, unemployment, reduction in remittances and limited re-integration

within most African policies.

VI. Globally, governments are focusing on fighting COVID-19, while simultaneously ensuring

survival and welfare being of their citizens. Some African countries are focusing more on

controlling COVID at the expense of other social services. Resultantly life threatening social

and economic risks for the population have been ignored while focusing on controlling

COVID -19, yet they are equally if not more dangerous than COVID-19.

Selected Regional Experiences

Mr Andrew Allieu- International Labour Organization Southern Region Office

The state of social protection prior to COVID-19: Large coverage and financing gaps

I. Even before COVID-19 social protection coverage against SDG 1.3.1 indicator remains very

low with 18% coverage for Africa.

II. For the ILO to respond adequately to this crisis and the long term, the following is required:

access to affordable and quality health care, protection of jobs and incomes using

unemployment insurance schemes and mechanisms to support enterprises, retain workers

and income support for the unemployed, through cash transfers, both by increasing the

levels of benefits and expanding coverage to the existing programmes and maintain

aggregate demand.

III. Humanitarian actions should complement and further strengthen national social protection

systems, not only in the crisis but also beyond the crisis

IV. A snapshot of the social protection responses to COVID - 19 in the SADC region showed that

since March, about 15 countries have announced concrete policy responses, and actual

measures. About 80% of the responses have been in the form of non-contributory.

V. Examples of country adjustment measures:

Administrative adjustments – Angola, Lesotho

Programme adjustment – Madagascar, Malawi, South Africa, Mozambique

Spending adjustments – Madagascar, Seychelles, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia

New Programmes -Eswatini, Botswana, Seychelles, Madagascar, Namibia,

Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Mauritius, South Africa, Malawi, Angola, DR Congo,

Lesotho

VI. Participants were encouraged to access ILO resources, tools and technical support i.e the

COVID Monitor that monitors the crisis response around the world which is an interactive

data dashboard and the Rapid Social Protection Calculator for COVID-19. It supports

countries that want to make rapid adjustments to their social protection programmes in

response to COVID-19, making quick calculations on temporal adjustments to existing

schemes, and new programmes or benefits.

Question and answer sessions

Q1: What is the best approach in institutionalising social assistance? Should national social

assistance programmes be housed in the Ministry of Social Protection or finance?

i. The practice in Africa is for social assistance not to be housed with ministry of finance but to

be housed in a welfare ministry, while maintaining inter-ministry collaboration between

financing social protection and programming.

Q2: In relation to your calculations, does the size of the population matter? In reference to the big

difference between South Africa and Mauritius.

i. The percentage of the poor in Mauritius is quite low, at about 1.5% compared to the

percentage of the poor in South Africa. So if you then minimise your analysis to only the

poor the amount becomes huge hence the difference.

Q3: Social protection is broad and comprises of social security and social welfare as was alluded to

by Gift in his presentation. What needs to be put in Southern Africa to enhance the social protection

systems in light of COVID-19?

i. From a financing point of view, data and trends are showing us that countries that have

institutionalised social assistance and are using domestic financing responded faster to

COVID-19 lockdown and its effects on livelihoods compared to countries that did not have or

have not institutionalised social assistance in Africa. You may think of having legal

instruments for these institutions to operate and for access to social assistance to be

justiciable and enforceable.

Q4: How can we identify the rural specific needs to design a proper contact specific response?

i. There are basic benchmarks that can be followed as rural and the informal sector needs are

quite similar. The best approach is to focus on people’s needs and relate that to impact and

implementation of sustainable and relevant measures.

ii. The issue of consultation with beneficiaries is very important and needs to be in place in the

development of social protection systems. The policy responses implemented so far have

excluded the informal sector showing the significance of inclusion and participation of

recipients in decision making.

iii. We need to revisit social protection frameworks, and commitments, as COVID-19 represents

an opportunity to explore how we do things better moving forward, including all citizens of

the region, regardless of national status.

Q5: Does ILO have a similar analysis for the other regions in Africa like East Africa?

i. The ILO tool can generate analysis for every region.

Closing remarks

At the end of the two sessions the chairpersons of the board of directors, and the board of trustees,

Mr Chisupa and Professor Olivier, respectively, thanked Helmut for his support whilst in Zambia,

thanking him for his support and push on the SASPEN agenda while at FES Zambia and wished him

well in his new posting. They both welcomed the new FES director, Mr Fritz Kopiseker, and looked

forward to working with him.

Mr Fritz Kopsieker introduced himself, giving a brief background of his work with FES in Botswana,

FES Ghana and headquarters in Germany. He was thankful for the web seminar and stressed that he

learnt so much and looked forward to working with SASPEN. Mr Helmut Elischer, the outgoing

Resident Director, thanked everyone and stressed that the moment was bittersweet, as he was

leaving behind friends and colleagues he had worked with for some time.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only exposed vulnerabilities in the region, but has also shown the

significance of institutionalising Social protection and the significance of the role of social protection

in responding to emergencies. We have witnessed Governments in the region expand social

protection and implement new programmes in response to COVID-19, with countries with existing

and domestically funded social protection programmes responding faster than countries without

well-established social protection systems.

The Pandemic creates an opportunity to revisit existing frameworks and institutionalisation of rights-

based social protection, integrating new programmes and approaches. Post COVID-19, it is expected

that longer term home grown solutions inclusive of universal health care and access to income

anchored in the law of the land and domestically financed are realised. This will enable countries to

maintain resilient systems responding to similar challenges in future taking into consideration

vulnerable groups such as women, children, the disabled, the informal sector and migrants.

Taking into consideration the following recommendations;

i. Continuous profiling of the impact of COVID-19 for countries inclusive of gendered impact,

with a focus on increased burden of care and women’s work schedules. This will inform

support for women’s caring roles and income security through social protection.

ii. Livelihood recovery and regeneration measures should be part of social protection measures

inclusive of work rehabilitation.

iii. Supportive urban policies for the self-employed working in public spaces i.e local

government providing protective equipment, water and sanitation

iv. Focus on supporting and strengthening links with Regional Economic Communities (RECs)

and use migration dialogue platforms (Regional Consultative Process) to ensure whole of

government/society consultations on collaborative actions and promote socio-economic

recovery in the sub-region.

v. Support the development of an Integrated/Coordinated Border Management approach

which integrates health security, and aligns to continental and regional frameworks.

vi. Promote and adopt Innovative approaches towards increased financing and access for social

protection.

vii. Decision making structures should be representative of men, women and the youth.

viii. Innovation in the continuity of essential services such as HIV/AIDS care, reproductive health

and GBV response management, i.e in Malawi call centres have been created to report cases

of GBV.