GCSJ seminar series: Overcoming colonial continuities in the area of social protection

Speaker: Dr Roosa Lambin Visiting Research Fellow in Social Policy

In 1884 at the Congo Conference, European powers divided up the African geography to take full political, economic, and military control over the continent under European colonisation. Today, 140 years later and some 65 years after independence from colonial powers across the continent, imprints of colonial pasts are still tangible in contemporary social protection and welfare arrangements, while external influences continue to impact social and economic policies. Our study explores how colonial legacy and continued colonial influences shape social protection arrangements in Mainland Tanzania and Cote d’Ivoire - two sub-Saharan African countries with different colonial pasts, acute social protection need and important ongoing domestically led social policy investments. Drawing on documentary analysis and stakeholder interviews, the study offers a critical, comparative analysis of how colonial pasts have influenced social protection policies and institutions in the two countries, to what extent the current dynamics of policymaking enable alignment with national social protection priorities, and how domestic leadership in social protection arrangements could be strengthened.

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