Has social protection in sub-Saharan Africa lost its way? There have been dramatic and impressive achievements in the past decade, but a review of country experiences reveals that there is still a long way to go in many countries, while in others progress appears to have stalled, with no clear consensus among domestic and external stakeholders on the way forward. Yet social protection remains central to correcting the inequalities created by skewed development processes of recent decades, and it is at the heart of our main development challenge for the early decades of the 21st century: how to spread the benefits of growth to include the poorest? This paper takes a look at the development community, arguing that it is time to re-evaluate the way the donors, consultants, researchers, NGO workers are engaging in social protection in Africa.