Review of social protection experiences in Sub-Saharan Africa: The case of Eritrea

Gebremichael Kibreab Habtom

Department of Management and Public Administration, College of Business and Social Sciences, P.O. Box 12492, Adi Keih, Eritrea
DOI – http://doi.org/10.37502/IJSMR.2022.5107

Abstract

The study reviews the major changes of social protection programs of Eritrea with regards to financing, institutional capacity and potential support. The data for study was partially taken from the studies conducted in the ministry of labor and Social welfare in May 2019 and November 2020. Both studies used survey and case study methodologies. The study seeks to answer the for two research questions: what are the challenges of the social protection programs in Eritrea? And what lessons can be learned from the experience of Sub-Saharan African countries? To answer these questions a deductive approach was adopted in this study methodology. To this end Sub-Saharan countries experience of social protection programs are reviewed and analyzed in general and the social protection programs of Eritrea in particular. In this study it is found that in Eritrea social protection programs are less integrated into national plans, inter-sectoral coordination and collaboration among government ministries and civil societies is the low budget allocated to social protection programs are inadequate, technical and institutional capacities are insufficient to develop and administer social protection programs, reliable data on which policies on social protection can be based is hardly available, monitoring and evaluation systems are inadequate: and information dissemination on availability of existing social protection programs are limited. The government should adop and implement broad-based social protection policies to mitigate and counteract all sources of vulnerability including chronic crop failure, health epidemics, environmental disasters, and other external shocks, and align social protection programs to family policy on education, health, housing, and food security. It is believed that the basic strategies and policies of social protection programs in Sub-Saharan Africa would provide a good lesson for developing countries like Eritrea. Eritrea could learn a lot from the experience of Sub-Saharan African countries, both success and failure stories of social protection systems.

Keywords – social protection, protection programs.

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