Based on sustained government commitment and development of institutional capacities, social security in West Africa has made important progress over the past decade through strengthening both legal frameworks and administrative structures. However, large segments of the population, and in particular workers in the informal sector, remain without social security coverage. The ISSA Technical seminar on digitalization to leverage extension of social security coverage in West Africa will take place in Accra, Ghana, 2−3 October 2023.
Since the onset of the pandemic, every country has turned to social security on a scale rarely seen before. The protracted crisis and the subsequent mutations of the COVID-19 virus continue to pose a policy dilemma on whether to open up the economy but at the risk of a resurgence of contagion. Amidst the unprecedented adversity, social security institutions in Africa are doing their best to deliver on the promise of protection. Pre-pandemic efforts to build capacities and improve services are enabling an unwavering response to the demands of the times.
Mali is a low-income, fragile country that has suffered extraordinary setbacks in in the last decade. It is a landlocked economy which is highly dependent on agriculture with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of US$ 875 (current USD) in 2019. Mali is in the lower 15th percentile of the world’s income distribution. Around 44 percent of the population live in poverty. It is also a fragile state that has witnessed persistent conflict with political coups, social tensions, insecurity and violence.
Climate change, once perceived as a long-term environmental issue, is now an immediate threat to safety and prosperity, especially for the most vulnerable people that are hit hardest by increasing weather extremes (SPACE, 2021). The African continent is considered to be the most vulnerable to climate change, due to its populations' reliance on subsistence agricultural production and extractive activities, which are greatly affected by natural disasters coupled with poor financial, technical and institutional capacity to adapt.
At a time when political crises are dramatically amplifying ongoing structural transformations in rural areas across the West African Sahel and the Horn of Africa, new demands are emerging for not only productive but also civic rights for pastoral populations that have historically been politically marginalized.
Recognition of social security as a fundamental human right, a growing acceptance of the merits of comprehensive and adequate social protection for realizing societal well-being, and heightened international and national political commitment are driving efforts to expand effective access to social protection to uncovered population groups as well as to extend the scope of existing coverage. In Africa, as elsewhere, social protection interventions are designed to respond to the contingencies to which people, families and households may be exposed over the life course.
