The fast and sustained economic growth in Africa over the past two decades has not yet translated into improved social outcomes in most countries. High levels of poverty and inequality persist, caused by differences in income, gender, ethnicity and age.

This is largely because the nature of growth is mainly capital-intensive, with limited job creation, and unfair redistribution of economic gains. That is, growth is not sufficiently inclusive and equitable, skewing development dynamics and excluding large segments of the population from development processes.

The excluded groups have limited access to social protection and economic opportunities, and are vulnerable to external shocks, which reduces their productive capacities and pushes them back or further into poverty. This in turn deters overall growth and development, and threatens the prospects of peace and stability.

Promoting more inclusive development in Africa is therefore an urgent priority and a pre-condition for building more sustainable and cohesive societies, and in the long term, towards Africa achieving the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

African Social Development Index

African member States requested ECA, during the second session of the Committee on Human and Social Development 2011, in Addis Ababa, to develop an African-specific indicator for tracking progress on reducing human exclusion.

The African Social Development Index was developed in response to this request. It follows a life-cycle approach building on the premise that people can face different forms of exclusion at different stages of life, which are likely to have cumulative and adverse effects over their lifetimes. The focus is on the effects of policy interventions and contextual factors (social, economic, political and cultural) on human exclusion at different points in time.

Based on this framework, the African Social Development Index aims to estimate the levels of human exclusion in six key dimensions of well-being. Its disaggregation by gender and location (subgroup analysis), provinces (subnational analysis), and over time (longitudinal analysis), allows the Index to track exclusion within countries and over time.

Looking ahead

Initial results of the African Social Development Index for Southern Africa have confirmed that, notwithstanding the high levels of economic growth, countries are still coping with the challenge of making this growth more inclusive and equitable. The subnational disaggregation and analysis of drivers of exclusion in particular, have highlighted important gaps between locations and population groups, which can guide Governments in designing more targeted and inclusive social policies.

In this context, a policy-mapping framework has been developed by the Social Development Policy Division to identify and assess the effectiveness of social policies in reducing human exclusion over time. The framework has been piloted in Benin, and will soon be disseminated and shared with member States and other stakeholders. This exercise is a major step forward in using the African Social Development Index for improved policy targeting and development planning.

The outcomes of the African Social Development Index are also contributing to related activities and analytical work of the Division in the areas of nutrition, social protection and employment – including the Cost of Hunger Studies, the African Social Development Report on ‘Informality and Inequality in Africa’, and the Report on Urbanization in Africa, among others.

Global and regional frameworks, such as Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, offer an important window of opportunity to move beyond economic growth and place human and social dimensions at the centre of the development process.

Challenges and conclusion

Preliminary results of the African Social Development Index have pointed to the need for African countries to refocus their development priorities to tackle human exclusion more effectively, and deal with the structural drivers. Exclusion is a multidimensional phenomenon, and confronting it is a long-term process, particularly when its causes are rooted in historical and cultural norms. Policies that expand opportunities and human capital can ensure the effective integration of all individuals in the development process.

Achieving inclusive development is not simply about increasing the size of national economies, but also about expanding opportunities that take the rights of individuals and the issue of equity into consideration. The African Social Development Index provides an important tool for member States to identify policy gaps and formulate appropriate policy interventions to reduce human exclusion over time.

However, the application of the Index in select African countries has also highlighted a number of important challenges, including the limited availability of disaggregated data, particularly at the subnational level, that can hamper the effective use of the Index for policy planning. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that political buy-in does not always translate into sustained national commitment. It will therefore be critical to provide continued support to countries in improving data collection and closely monitoring the implementation of the African Social Development Index, to ensure that the Index is effectively mainstreamed in national and subnational development processes.

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This report was submitted to the recent UNECA meeting of the Committee on Gender and Social Development on SDGs in Africa: enhancing gender-responsive and social development policies (17-18 December 2015).