Rural and urban livelihoods, social exclusion and social protection in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract This paper shows that with the decline of overall poverty, the concern for rising or persisting inequalities and the need for a transformative social protection, the capacity of countering social exclusion and promoting social justice also becomes increasingly relevant to urbanizing sub-Saharan Africa. It is argued that several parts of sub-Saharan Africa are likely to move towards pro-poor urbanization and show emerging changes in rural and urban livelihoods. Then, the practice of social protection programmes along the rural–urban continuum in sub-Saharan Africa is examined extensively in order to determine whether these practices align with emerging changes in livelihoods and tackle social exclusion in a transformative way. It is found that the livelihoods of the poor are enhanced and that social inclusion has increased. However, social protection’s adaptation to emerging changes in rural and urban livelihoods is still poor, and so is social protection’s capacity to tackle social exclusion in a transformative way. It is concluded that transformative social protection would require more structural interventions through empowering pressure on the state and innovative decentralization from the top.