Social Protection
Social Security
 Social
security is the protection that a society provides to individuals
and households to ensure access to health care and to guarantee
income security, particularly in the case of old age, unemployment,
sickness, invalidity, work injury, maternity or loss of a breadwinner.
Social security protection is regarded by the United Nations as
a basic human right - albeit one that only a small proportion of
the people in the world actually enjoy. The extension of adequate
social security to all is increasingly recognized as an extremely
powerful tool for combating the causes and effects of poverty.
The provision of social security is varied in Southern Africa. Although
the majority of countries in this region have existing workers compensation
schemes and some have pension schemes provident, social insurance,
or means-tested, less than 50% of the working population in the
formal sector is covered. A series of governance issues further
affects these schemes. There has also been a significant growth
in the numbers working in the informal economy who are without such
schemes and whose needs are short-term in nature. SRO-Harare is
working with the tripartite constituents to impact on the coverage
of full social security schemes and to develop and extend existing
traditional forms of social security available to the informal economy.
The ILO/SRO-Harare has embarked on a number of programme activities
within the Sub-region and through collaboration with the tripartite
representatives so as to impact on the establishment of comprehensive
social security schemes. The initiatives of ILO/SRO have considered
the prevailing factors with particular regard to existing traditional
forms of social security in the informal economy.
Services in the field of social security are aimed at improving
social protection of workers throughout the region through public
education and technical training, as well as provision of specialized
assistance such as legislative drafting, actuarial analysis, and
development of financial and accounting systems. Technical advisory
services are provided directly to social security institutions as
well as to governments and workers’ and employers’ organizations.
Given the limited development of social security in Southern Africa,
assistance is aimed largely at the launching of new schemes and
the conversion of arrangements based on individual liability (e.g.,
provident funds and workers compensation) to social insurance. These
efforts entail: (a) the design of new social security institutions,
with an emphasis on organizational structures to encourage accountability
and transparency in management; (b) social security public relations,
public education, and customer care; (c) periodic actuarial analysis
to ensure the long-term financial solvency of existing schemes;
and (d) the costing of planned innovations such as the coverage
of new groups of workers, improvements in benefits, and the conversion
of provident funds to pension schemes;
Some of the recent activities of the ILO/SRO-Harare within
the member States include the following:
- Support to Zimbabwe for the establishment of a national social
health insurance scheme.
- Support to Botswana and Lesotho for the establishment of a
comprehensive social security scheme.
- Support to Swaziland for the conversion of the National Provident
Fund to a social insurance pension scheme.
- Support to Malawi for the conversion of the workers compensation
scheme to a social insurance scheme.
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