EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL PROTECTION PROGRAMMES IN AFRICA Approaches to social protection in Africa has changed over time with a progression in social protection from formal and informal insurance, to safety nets, and then to poverty targeting and categorical provision such as cash transfers to vulnerable people. This enables them plan their expenditure to meet immediate basic consumption needs as well as provide the opportunity for investment in productive activities. Implementation of social protection programmes across African countries indicates positive potential developmental effects and it also an evidence that cash transfers can be affordable, even for developing country governments. Scaling up existing cash transfer programmes to national level, and offering full coverage of the eligible population(ten per cent of households in Malawi and Zambia and 19 per cent in Kenya) would cost between 0.5 and 1.7 per cent of GDP, or 2–4 per cent of the total government budget in these three countries(McCord, 2009). Cash transfer programme in Namibia reduced the incidence of poverty by 22 percent and the severity of poverty by 45 percent (Levine, van der Berg and Yu, 2009). In South Africa, a social transfer programme reduced inequality by seven percentage points. 41