If you have ever received financial support from the state because you were unable to work due to pregnancy, disability, sickness or old age, you’ve benefited from what is known as social protection.

Social protection is a basic human right. It’s fundamental to ensuring health and dignity. It’s also seen as increasingly important for poverty alleviation and social development around the world.

Social protection systems are often funded by deducting contributions from workers’ pay or general taxation to build an insurance fund that individuals can draw upon when they’re unable to work.

In 2010, only five African countries – Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda and South Africa – had social protection policies. This had risen to 35 out of 54 countries by 2019.

Social protection systems in some African countries are being rapidly digitised. This makes it possible to apply for and receive payments online or directly to your phone.

This overcomes the inefficiencies of travelling long distances to and queuing at government offices or banks. It addresses the endless forms and long waits for payments. Digital social protection systems offer benefits of 24/7 access that can be quicker and more convenient for many.

But what about the millions of people without access to the internet or a smartphone? Or the digital literacy necessary to use online forms or websites?

According to mobile industry figures in sub-Saharan Africa, only 51% of the population owns a smartphone. Less than a third have internet access.

I study the use of mobile and internet technologies in international development and social justice. To understand the impact of the digitalisation of social protection, I worked with a network of labour organisations. We researched seven African countries with some of the most marginalised informal sector workers who were trying to access social insurance schemes. These schemes are a type of social protection that workers pay into from their wages and draw upon when they cannot work or when they retire.

Our findings show that the barriers created by the digitalisation of social protection make it more difficult for many informal sector and marginalised workers to access the support they’re entitled to. These barriers included:

The study

We conducted the largest study of its kind in 2023 through surveys and focus groups with domestic, disabled, migrant and home-based workers in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The project brought together organisations championing African workers’ rights, disability rights and digital rights. Using a shared list of questions addressing agreed core issues, six partner organisations translated the questions into local languages for use in interviews, focus groups and surveys. Collectively, 276 marginalised workers were surveyed and 36 key informant interviews were conducted. A total of 421 workers participated in focus group discussions.

In speaking to workers’ leaders, civil society groups and government agencies administering social insurance systems, it became clear that the workers (the intended beneficiaries of the schemes) hadn’t asked for systems to be made digital and moved online. They had not been consulted and had not participated in the design or development of digital protection systems.

We found that the drivers of digitalisation were senior managers looking to increase cost efficiencies and controls, coupled with the enthusiasm of development donors. These donors include the World Bank and Mastercard (who fund digital social protection schemes), as well as IT and financial service companies.

The foreign companies, development agencies and corporations driving the digitalisation of social protection state that their aims are to: secure cost efficiencies, curtail corruption and link social protection to other digital governance systems.

The findings

Overall, our findings can be summarised under the six As of access to social protection. These are availability, affordability, awareness, abilities, accessibility and accountability.

Availability: In the seven countries we studied, millions of workers live in areas outside of the 4G cellular network that supports mobile access to digital social protection systems. This makes it impossible for these workers to register or receive payments online.

Affordability: Poor internet coverage, power cuts and signal problems were a big issue. But for many, the costs of smartphones and data were the biggest barrier. As one domestic worker in Zambia put it:

Most of us, we don’t have big phones with internet.

Awareness: Some workers aren’t aware of their rights or how to get what they are entitled to. Another domestic worker in Zambia had a phone but didn’t know how to use it to register for social insurance:

… I’m appealing for an awareness campaign for domestic workers, so that we understand this digital social protection.

Abilities: Some workers didn’t have the range of language, digital and financial literacy abilities necessary to use social protection schemes.

Accessibility: All the online registration forms we studied in the seven countries were in English rather than vernacular languages. Adaptive technology for blind users was lacking, and ATMs were inaccessible for wheelchair users.

Accountability: Accountability mechanisms can be lost when social protection systems go digital. This is because there is no human being to help explain or fix an error. Workers also raised important concerns about whether their personal data was protected and stored safely. We heard repeatedly that workers wanted to better understand their rights to see their own data records, verify the details, and correct any errors or omissions.

Way forward

It’s vital to raise awareness about digital rights and retain non-digital mechanisms for informal workers to access social protection. It’s also important to involve marginalised workers and their representatives in the design, implementation, governance and evaluation of digital social protection systems. This helps ensure that no one is left behind.