Abstract:
Reducing exclusion within and among countries in order to achieve the
Sustainable Development Goals in Africa would require basic
understanding of the effectiveness of the various policies and
programmes currently being implemented to improve welfare. The paper
contributes to this discussion through a comparative analysis of the
social protection paradigms applied during the era of the Millennium
Development Goals in Ghana and South Africa. The authors investigated
whether transformative measures such as changing regulatory framework
to protect vulnerable groups, operationalizing economic, social and
cultural rights of citizens, and public sensitisation campaigns have inbuilt
mechanisms for tackling exclusion. The main approach of the study
was a review of empirical literature that has examined the paradigms of
social protection in the two countries. The study revealed that investment
in education and enforcement of laws on social rights could reduce
inequality within and between the two countries. It was therefore
recommended that much effort should be made to improve investment in
education and enforce laws on social rights in order to achieve better
results from the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals
in Africa.