Social and economic insecurities have spread all over Africa during the period of globalization and economic liberalization, which has accelerated the erosion of traditional networks of ubuntu and mutual support.
This book documents some of the main developments, drawing on information from all parts of Africa and on surveys of many thousands of Africans and hundreds of workplaces, as well as detailed statistics supplied by government agencies.
It shows that conventional measures of poverty are inadequate to capture the depth of the crisis, and that orthodox anti-poverty measures often fail to reach the poor and most economically insecure. It concludes that, whether for tackling poverty and inequality or the scourge of HIV/AIDS, new systems of social protection are needed that are based on principles of universalism and social solidarity.