Africa: Facing Human Security Challenges in the 21st Century

Chapter 10 - Social Insecurity in Africa: Challenges and Prospects

359 Chapter 10 Social Insecurity in Africa: Challenges and Prospects Overview The global economic crisis of 2008/09 illustrated the importance of addressing social security across all African countries. Access to social security is an important human right that helps to alleviate poverty and improve standards of living. Through social security, the lives of the marginalized groups in the society are improved. The experiences during the crisis and the challenges that social security arrangements face provide a window of opportunity for social security reform and improvement. There is need to continuously monitor demographic, societal, economic, political and individual circumstances so as to conceive and implement comprehensive social security systems that address the needs of vulnerable groups in African countries. Global Landscape The global landscape is changing in three different ways: x Shrinking space. People’s lives, their jobs, incomes and health are affected by events on the African side of the globe, often by events Africans do not know about. x Shrinking time. Markets and technologies now change with unprecedented speed, with action at a distance in real time, with impacts on African people’s lives far away. An example is the rapid reversal of capital flows to the East Asian markets and its contagion from Thailand to Indonesia to Korea and also to faraway South Africa. x Disappearing borders. National borders are breaking down, not only for trade, capital and information but also for ideas, norms, cultures and values. Borders are also breaking down in economic policy-as multilateral agreements and the pressures of staying competitive in global markets constrain the options for 360 national policy in any African country, and as multinational corporations and global crime syndicates integrate their operations globally. What do all these global changes mean for the social security of Africans? People’s lives around the globe are linked more deeply, more intensely, more immediately than ever before. This opens many opportunities, giving new power to good and bad, to global women’s movements as well as to global crime syndicates. But it also exposes African people to risks from changes far away. African governments cannot cope with these vulnerabilities and risks on their own because their autonomy is weakening, and because “global bads” such as drugs and illegal arms travel the world with ease. Global integration is proceeding at breakneck speed and with amazing reach. But the process of globalization is uneven and unbalanced. The unevenness and imbalance compels uneven participation of countries and people in the expanding opportunities of globalization-in the global economy, in global technology, in the global spread of cultures and in global governance. The new rules of globalization-and the main players writing them focus on integrating global markets while neglecting the needs of people that markets cannot meet. This is where Africa has lost control of its social security. Inequities of Globalization It is unfortunate that the “globalization theory” assumes that all players, men and women, rich and poor, will be affected equally. Furthermore, it also assumes that international trade opportunities open up equally to small scale firms, infant industries and the giant transnational corporations and cartels. However, the several decades of contemporary globalization indicate otherwise because international trade is also to do with people’s livelihoods and their most basic social and economic rights-their social security. For millions of Africa’s poorest people, trade is part of daily life, and a crucial determinant of welfare. When a people’s social and economic rights and patterns are affected, their culture is overall affected too. Trade which is built on the unacceptable levels of 361 social inequities to vulnerable communities and groups, or causes global ecological or environmental damage and disregards obligations to future generations is not conducive to social security and sustainable development. Established and large companies such as TNCs came in and brought in their finished goods at much cheaper prices than those of our own manufacturers, thus forcing many local industries to close down. In Zimbabwe, the clothing sector was hardest hit with the closure of the local Cone Textiles, which retrenched hundreds of workers. These workers were family breadwinners with children in schools and houses to pay rent for. Because of the tight labor market, most of them are frustrated and disillusioned with no work and money. The importation and cheap selling of second-hand clothes from Europe has forced many women out of their businesses. In Kenya, the women who were...