How Africa is creating welfare states
Africa is stitching together social safety-nets even though it is still poor
UNDERNEATH THE mango tree that marks the centre of Kondo, a village in northern Tanzania, Mwanaidi Saidi prises open a green box. Inside are the 110,000 Tanzanian shillings ($47) the 35-year-old has saved since she joined the country’s nascent welfare scheme. “The money helps me solve small problems,” she says. It has helped her buy school uniforms for her four children, medicine for her ill mother and ingredients to make the samosas she sells by the side of the road.
This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Welfare states rising”
From the February 23rd 2019 edition
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