Within the European Union, poverty and disadvantage is related to 'social exclusion. This concept is credited to Lenoir (1974) who proclaimed that a range of groups were excluded from the French society: persons with disabilities, suicidal people, elderly, abused chil
dren, substance abusers, delinquents, single parents, multi-problem households, marginal, asocial persons and other social "misfits" Since Lenoir (1974), the use of the term "social exclusion" has increased in European policy circles, especially in France, where the concept originated as well as in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The axiom underlying social exclusion as an approach to social development is that citi
zens should have opportunities to participate in a wide range of activities, if they choose to do so. Institutional or 'structural' barriers to participation need to be removed or
re-Placing Social Integration at the Centre of Africa's Development Agenda
duced. There have been debates as to whether social exclusion is relevant to Africa. On one hand, it is argued that the term was coined out of the European experience and has little relevance to Africa. On the other hand, if one defines social exclusion to mean barriers to participation, the term applies to Africa as well. In Africa, gender, culture and poverty play a major role in social exclusion, as will be shown later in the report. The converse of social exclusion is social inclusion and participation. Hence one definition of social exclusion proposed for EU member States is:
" a process whereby certain individuals are pushed to the edge of society and pre
vented from participating fully by virtue of their poverty, or lack of basic compe
tencies and lifelong learning opportunities, or as a result of discrimination. This distances them from jobs, income and education opportunities as well as social and community networks and activities. They have little access to power and decision
making bodies and thus often feeling powerless and unable to take control over the decisions that affect their day to day lives." (Commission of the European Com
munities 2003: 9)
In order to monitor progress in member States, the European Union adopted a set of indi
cators of social exclusion at its 2001 Conference in Laeken, Belgium, known as the Laeken Indicators (See Annex I), which cover the four dimensions of social inclusion referred to above and include such indicators as: the poverty rate (by age, gender, activity, household type, accommodation tenure), inequality of income distribution, regional cohesion mea
sured by the dispersion of regional employment rates, long-term unemployment rate, persons living in jobless households, early school leavers, life expectancy, and self-defined health status (Eurostat 2004).
Though it is clear that the concept of social exclusion is relevant to the situation in Africa, the difficulties lie in its implementation. For policy purposes the term should be defined within the context of social problems affecting the marginalized. By using the concept of social exclusion, policymakers should be able to identify problems and policy responses that cannot be achieved by using other terminology and conceptual frameworks. As noted by Sen (2000), "Even though the European literature on social exclusion has been driven by the European context, it has made an important suggestive contribution to the possibil
ity of analysing poverty in other regions with greater interest in constitutive deprivation associated with exclusions of various types." (Sen 2000: 23).
However, it is important to reflect on the overall economic and social situation in Africa.
In this respect, a large proportion of the population in many sub-Saharan countries re
mains in extreme poverty, which is in contrast to the situation in Europe where the major
ity of the population are above any sort of (relative) poverty line and only a minority are poor in an income and multidimensional sense. In Africa, social exclusion is not necessar
ily physical or economic in nature, rather it is a product of a seamless web of interrelated aspects of income poverty and social and cultural practices.
The relationship between poverty and social exclusion in Africa is indeed complex and in
terrelated. Poverty is both a driver and an outcome of social exclusion, even when one uses a broader concept of poverty such as that which is reflected in the capabilities approach of
The African Social Deveiopment Report 2009
Sen 2000. In the first case, poor people are often excluded from participating in economic, social and political areas of life because they lack the education, health and self-esteem to do so. In addition, people stuck in chronic poverty also suffer from stigmatization and discrimination because of their situation. At the same time, being excluded on the basis of identity or location is a major driver of poverty. In short, social exclusion and chronic poverty are mutually reinforcing in Africa.
In this respect, the employment dimension manifests itself differently in Africa. Rather than unemployment or jobless households, the main barrier to inclusion in terms of the labour market is the lack of decent jobs in the formal economy and the fact that most Africans, particularly those from marginalized groups, eke out a meager living in the in
formal economy. The education and health barriers are major constraints to inclusion that arise in African countries due to inequities in accessing social services, evidence of which is cited in this report. The HIV/AIDS crisis has impacted on this further not only in terms of the direct discrimination faced by people living with the diseases but also by placing a burden on the health sector. Furthermore, financial and economic crises exacerbate the situation of excluded groups in Africa. Their participation in the labour market is limited and the effect of the global crisis could lead to increases in unemployment in the formal market and the possible increment in informal jobs, by definition with low standards and conditions of work.
Finally, it may be important to distinguish between the active fostering of exclusion -whether done by the government or by any other wilful agent - and a passive development of an exclusion that may result from a set of circumstances without such volitional im
mediacy." Examples of the latter include the impact of poor economic conditions and the resulting increase in poverty in rural areas. In this case, the poor economic conditions are not a deliberate act by policymakers, but isolated communities are nonetheless affected, as may be manifested in terms of their access to markets, infrastructure, education, and other important resources for the building a sustainable livelihood. In Africa, for example women and the disabled have been subjected to active fostering of passive exclusion by cultural, historical and social beliefs and practices that have defined roles at the household level and are reflected at the meso and macro policy level.
Social exclusion can be described schematically as the lack of participation in economic, social and political dimensions. This framework, whilst relevant at the descriptive level in Africa, does not provide instruments for policy formulation given the mutually reinforc
ing aspect of poverty and dimensions of exclusion (see table 2.1).
Placing Social integration at the Centre of Africa's Development Agenda
Table 2.1
Overview of the different dimensions of social exclusion
Dimension of social exclusion Areas of exclusion Examples
Exclusion from full Restricted access from the • Exclusion from land and participation in opportunities to earn income, other natural resources
economic life the (because of scarcity.
labour markets, and from landlessness and lack of legal
factors of entitlement, especially
production such as land and women and poor men)
a wide • Exclusion from agricultural
range of livelihood livelihood (due to lack of opportunities. access to inputs or labour
availability)
• Exclusion from formal and informal employment (due to lack of education, specialized skills, gender, race and ethnic background, disability age)
Exclusion from social Restricted access to • Exclusion from social
participation infrastructure, sen/ices health, education.
amenities, social services housing, water, sanitation (education (due to distance, usage costs, and health), social security and gender, poverty)
protection, community and • Exclusion from physical
family infrastructure (distance, usage
support. costs)
Exclusion from political Restricted access to • Exclusion from organization
and community organization, and representation (due to
participation consultation, decision-making and
the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
patterns of political inclusion)
Source: Adapted from Beall and Piron (2005) and Adato et al. (2005).