This article unpacks the expanding social protection agenda, in which promotive objectives have been added to the original welfare or safety net aim of protection. It draws out the resulting tensions, potentials and limits, to inform a discussion of where African social protection is and is headed. After tracing several initial drivers of social assistance in Africa – structural adjustment, food insecurity and famines, HIV and AIDS, and conflict – it shows how promotive effects were increasingly advocated along three pathways: investment of social transfers, building human capital, and linking social with economic support. International development agencies added their own priorities to this agenda, drawing on evidence of promotive impacts to convince national governments. Drawing on Zambia’s experience, we conclude that, while the expanded agenda redirects attention to questions of economic development, its transformative potential remains limited due to a persistent focus on the micro-level and a failure to build effective linkages to other sectors.