Equatorial Guinea has experienced unprecedented economic transformation in a very short period of time. The country’s rapid economic growth is unparalleled almost anywhere in the world: from one of the world’s poorest countries in the 1970s and 1980s, Equatorial Guinea became the first ever high-income country in sub-Saharan Africa in the 2000s (UNDP, 2007). However, while the country has flourished economically as a result of oil revenues over the past few years, it is dangerously over-dependent on this single non-renewable commodity and has very poor social indicators.

This paper, based on a recent research report on social protection and children in Equatorial Guinea, discusses how the country could develop a social protection system that would help reduce childhood poverty and vulnerability and translate the high rate of economic growth into broader human development.