Addis Ababa, 26 April 2023 (ECA) - Africa should invest in the design and implementation of effective social policies that address specific challenges on the continent in order to achieve sustainable development, Economic Commission for Africa, Acting Executive Secretary, Antonio Pedro has challenged researchers.
Africa needs effective social policies suited to the continent and its people and this is a question that academic researchers on the continent should be answering against the backdrop of the ongoing multiple crises, Mr. Pedro said at the online launch of publications and the website for the Gender Equitable and Transformative Social Policy for Post-COVID-19 Africa project (GETSPA).
GETSPA is an ambitious pan African project aimed at research, capacity building, policy engagement and network building to support the construction of social policy regimes fit for the ambitious real structural transformation in the twin Agendas 2063 and 2030.
Mr. Pedro noted that the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine war and the climate change impacts, have shown the crucial role of social policy in addressing the health care challenges and in supporting the society and the economy during turmoil.
That 62 million people were pushed into poverty between 2019 and 2020 and an additional 18 million poor people emerged in Africa in 2022, points to the need to improve current social policies in building resilient economies in Africa, Mr. Pedro said.
"We need to invest in spatial analysis so that the member states can better target their social policies and understand where the most vulnerable people are; and in this way, policies are not deployed blindly," stressed Mr. Pedro, emphasizing that the ECA was undertaking social policy-oriented and empirical research to strengthen the capacities of member states to develop and implement appropriate policies that promote sustainable development.
In addition, the ECA Gender, Poverty and Social Policy Division, whose focus is achieving inclusive and equitable sustainable human and social development in Africa has generated new evidence on economically vulnerable populations and provided support to improve economic recovery and resilience in African countries. This work is in response to an increase in poverty and vulnerability among member states as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr. Pedro opined that a multistakeholder approach to designing effective social policy instruments adapted to Africa's unique conditions was inevitable in the face of multiple crises experienced by African countries.
For her part, Muthoni Wanyeki, Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation (Africa) said the Covid 19 pandemic and Africa's response has exposed and deepened economic and social crises and inequalities in Africa and pointed to Africa's poor access to critical vaccines from global markets after hoarding by developed countries.
"The biggest lesson from Covid 19, as well as the current debt and climate crisis is that Africa has to build preparedness and resilience to better cope with shocks from a less dependent position," said Ms. Wanyeki, underscoring the necessity of robust social policies and the need for synergies between economic policies and social policies.
GETSPA seeks to produce and share knowledge about social policy and to map the current social policy landscape on the continent, said Dzodzi Tsikata, academic and Principal Investigator at GETSPA.
Ms. Tsikata said that in the last five decades, neoliberal economics has made Africa's social regimes unfit for supporting production, reproduction of the present and future generations, protecting the vulnerable and promoting national cohesion. Therefore, social policy should be an investment in human capacities and development so that it addresses the intersecting inequalities of class, gender, generation and space.
Speaking at the launch of the GETSPA platform, Brian Kagoro, Director of Justice and Intersectionality at the OSF (Global), said social policy is a long term project and should be viewed as a tool for addressing social challenges such as the erosion of formal employment, invisibility of care economies and the feminization of poverty.
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About the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
Established by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (UN) in 1958 as one of the UN's five regional commissions, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa's (ECA's) mandate is to promote the economic and social development of its Member States , foster intraregional integration and promote international cooperation for Africa's development. ECA is made up of 54 Member States and plays a dual role as a regional arm of the UN and as a key component of the African institutional landscape.
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