Africa’s Social Policy Trajectories Since the Colonial Period: Constructing social policies in Portuguese-speaking African countries, the nefarious effects of instability

This report is the synthesis of the Cluster IX (Lusophone) country findings. We aimed to investigate the conceptualisation and framing of social policies, from a historical perspective, from colonial times to the present day. The work intends to answer the following central question: "How have the social policies adopted over time in the study's focus countries impacted on the ideals of gender equality, particularly during the pandemic COVID-19?" This cluster focused on the following four sectors: education, health, work/employment, and social security. 

The analysis of social policies for each sector included a comprehensive review of social policies from colonial times to the present; consultations of important legislation, reports, and articles on the subject; semi-structured interviews with key informants and those responsible for financing and implementing social policies and programmes in the country to gather perceptions about the evolution of social programmes and policies. We also assessed relevant statistical data related to the sectors under analysis.