Social Protection and Disability in South Africa

This working paper launches a new series of publications that identify good practice in enabling the inclusion of persons with disabilities in social protection systems and programmes.

It finds that South Africa’s lifecycle system of social security transfers for disabled people, one of the such systems in low- and middle-income countries, has overall had a major positive impact on the lives of persons with disabilities. It also identifies challenges that need to be addressed with accessing benefits, a complex and exclusionary registration process, and a design that may discourage people from working.

This paper is one of seven country case studies produced as part of the DFID-financed study Leaving no-one behind: How social protection can help people with disabilities move out of extreme poverty.