South Africa has made significant strides in growing its social security and social development system to reduce poverty and inequality since the advent of democracy in 1994. The country’s rights-based and redistributive social protection system builds on earlier social policies and was substantively refashioned to address the country’s colonial and apartheid legacy. This chapter documents the South African case with reference to the following themes: first, it sets out the social and economic challenges facing the country in relation to poverty and inequality. Second, it demonstrates the conceptual and policy significance of the South African case in relation to the rise of social protection policies to promote inclusive development in countries in the Global South. The South African welfare regime is the third theme. It focuses on the evolution of social security and social development, discusses the features of the approach, the nature and scope of social protection policies and their impacts. Finally, the chapter concludes by considering the policy issues and future trajectory of social protection in South Africa.

Developmental social work is receiving increasing international recognition and much may be learnt from its application in different societal contexts. The article draws on empirical data from a South African study and provides valuable insight into how social workers conceptualize and translate developmental social work into practice.

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This paper reflects on the trajectory of social policy in South Africa (1994-2017) and on which policy levers present opportunities for crosscountry policy transfer, in order to address current social development challenges. The current direction of social policy is described as the result of a compromise between two distinct alternative paradigms whereby the statist transformative and market-oriented residual paradigms are held in tension. On the one hand, a transformative policy perspective draws on human rights and views redistribution as a necessary premise for and means of economic growth. On the other hand in the residual framework, redistribution is envisaged as a secondary function that is dependent on economic growth. Several instances are outlined in which this tension is evident, together with the implications for social policy across the policy cycle: in legislation; in social compact formation; in the selection of social programmes and in their implementation; in gender-mainstreaming and in the engagement of the private sector in social policy. Overall we highlight areas of hybrid policy overlap between these bifurcated ideological, political and institutional frameworks, for example around social transfers and corporate social investment. We also describe instances of conflicting and at times unexpected outcomes, such as the National Health Insurance. Several factors are concluded to be of relevance to the Global South more generally: the importance of constitutionally-legislated rights as a basis for advancing socioeconomic claims; the emergence of new social compacts in contexts where there are significant levels of informal employment and unemployment and lastly, the influence of fiscal and institutional capability factors in shaping the direction of social policy and its implementation.

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