Compensation for employment injury is the only one of the nine branches of social security defined by the International Labour Organization which exists throughout southern Africa. Yet, in practice, many of the schemes fall short of providing a minimum standard. Compliance is low, record-keeping is poor, and delays in payments are frequent. Moreover, half the schemes provide only lump-sum benefits which may be rapidly exhausted by workers, leaving them with no social protection at all. Not only would the strengthening of these schemes improve the lives of the tens of thousands of workers who suffer occupational injuries and diseases each year; but setting up an effective bureaucratic infrastructure for administering this form of social security would also facilitate efforts now under way in several countries to establish additional benefits.

In Southern and Eastern Africa, four countries, namely Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland, still had employer liability schemes in 2014. Malawi and Swaziland require employers to purchase insurance; Malawi imposes no requirement as to how the employer meets the legal obligation to provide compensation; and Botswana allows employers to do so either by purchasing insurance or placing a deposit with the government.

The conversion of several of these schemes to social insurance has been under discussion over the last two decades. On the contrary, countries like Zambia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe have now well established national social insurance based systems of employment injury.

For more information see:

ILO/Centre for International and Comparative Labour and Social Security Law/Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2016

ILO, 2014

Eliane Fultz, Bodhi Pieris, 1999