DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i02.016

Pages: 392-400

The current desk research explored the available options of social protection on poverty alleviation in Zimbabwe. The country’s experience of social protection has been diverse and most of the debate has focused on expanding coverage and identifying more sources of finance in order to fight poverty. The social protection strategies available in Zimbabwe included labour market policies and programmes, social insurance programmes, social assistance and welfare service programmes, cash transfers, transformative and advocacy programmes, humanitarian aid in response to crises, micro and area-based schemes to address vulnerability at the community level, child protection to ensure the healthy and productive development of children and other instruments such as insurance, livestock and fee waivers. Although the country has institutionalized social protection system, some of the programmes were ineffective due to a number of factors including limited fiscal space; limited coverage, serving only the formal sector; inappropriate instruments, often copied from developed countries (but not appropriate to serve Zimbabwe’s in-country needs); poor and antiquated infrastructure; widening inequality and exclusion of some marginalized groups; legal restrictions and partial or non-alignment of major laws and policies with the new constitution adopted in 2013; limited human resource capacity; poor retention of skilled labour and administrative bottlenecks and problems of compliance.