Abstract:
The promotion of social protection in Sub-Saharan Africa happens in a context
where informal labour markets constitute the norm, and where most workers
live uncertain livelihoods with very limited access to official social protection.
The dominant social protection agenda and the associated literature come with
an almost exclusive focus on donor and state programmes even if their coverage
is limited to small parts of the populations – and in no way stands measure to
the needs. In these circumstances, people depend on other means of protection
and cushioning against risks and vulnerabilities including different forms of collective self-organizing providing alternative forms of social protection. These
informal, bottom-up forms of social protection are at a nascent stage of social
protection discussions, and little is known about the extent or models of these
informal mechanisms.
This book seeks to fill this gap by focusing on three important sectors of
informal work, namely transport, construction, and micro-trade in Kenya and
Tanzania. It explores how the global social protection agenda interacts with informal contexts and how it fits with the actual realities of the informal workers.
Consequently, the authors examine and compare the social protection models
conceptualized and implemented ‘from above’ by the public authorities in Tanzania and Kenya with social protection mechanisms ‘from below’ by the informal workers own collective associations.
The book will be of interest to academics in International Development Studies, Political Economy, and Africa.
