Social protection

[Internal Source : Country Brief: Mozambique, “Consultancy for the Social Protection Analysis Study for the Regional Bureau of Southern Africa”, 21 November 2023, RFP/22/HCR/RBSA/SUP/001]

Although the 1975 Constitution of Mozambique prescribed the right to social protection for the elderly and the disabled, further legal provisions regarding the sector were only established in 2007, with the introduction of the country’s Social Protection Law. This law outlines three specific components of social protection that  make up the country’s social protection system today. These consist of i) social assistance programmes that target vulnerable families; ii) social security for those in the formal sector, and iii) a complementary system of social protection that is made up of social programmes under the Ministries of Health and Education. In 2009, the Government approved Decree 85/2009 that specified additional regulations regarding basic social security. The Decree specifies four main areas: direct social assistance; health-related social assistance; education-related social assistance; and productive action. 

Mozambique’s first National Basic Social Security Strategy was introduced in 2010. Its main goals were to increase social protection coverage and efficiency, while also improving coordination between the measures in place. To operationalize the strategy and to achieve its goal, a Plan of Operations was adopted in 2011. By 2016, the country implemented its second National Basic Social Security Strategy (ENSSB-II 2016-2024), which considers the main vulnerabilities at each stage of a person’s life cycle. Its main objectives are to i) boost the level of consumption and the resilience of the poor and vulnerable, ii) contribute to the development of human capital among the poor and vulnerable through improvements in nutrition, health and education, iii) prevent and respond to risks of violence, abuse, exploitation, discrimination and social exclusion through social welfare services, and iv) develop the institutional capacity to implement and coordinate the basic social security sub-system. 

Social protection in Mozambique is composed of contributory and non-contributory schemes. The former includes benefits in the event of old-age, illness, maternity, disability, and death for formal private and public sector employees. In 2021, 956,097 workers were actively contributing to contributory social insurance schemes - corresponding to roughly 6 per cent of the labour force. In contrast, non-contributory social protection in Mozambique consists of four key programmes as outlined by the first National Basic Social Security Strategy: i) a Basic Social Subsidy Program (a cash transfer programme; PSSB), ii) a Direct Social Action Program (an in-kind and food voucher programme, PASD), iii) a Productive Social Action Program (a public works programme, focused on vulnerable households with labour capacity within the household, PASP), and iv) Social Assistance Services (a set of institutional care services for vulnerable categories of the population, PAUS) – all of which are coordinated by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Action (MGCAS) and implemented by the National Institute of Social Action (INAS) . By 2021, these four non-contributory social protection programs administered by INAS covered 1,772,708 beneficiary households or 7.9 per cent of those in need.