This paper challenges existing analyses of party cleavages in Sub-Saharan Africa which over-emphasise the centrality of ethnicity. Parties express ideological positions that reflect the socio-economic interests of specific regions, which, especially in Zambia, coincide with particular ethnic groups. We demonstrate this through an examination of party manifestos, policy documents and semi-structured interviews with members of two political parties in Zambia – the Patriotic Front and the United Party for National Development. These parties express clear normative ideas about social welfare, especially the role of the state in providing social assistance to the poorest. These ideological positions reflect the socio-economic interests of the ethnic groups and regions where support for each party is dominant. These are shaped by the ways in which these regions were historically incorporated into the colonial economy. In order to gain a better understanding of African politics, ethnicity must be conceptualised as a socio-cultural construct and situated historically.

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South Africa stands out for its social protection response to Covid-19, especially regarding the expansion of programmes, number of beneficiaries and benefit amount. At the height of the pandemic, the government introduced the emergency Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant was introduced for over 10 million unemployed adults and informal workers through a digitised system. Despite successes in expanding the grant system, digitisation of the system presented challenges and led to exclusion errors. An alternative to the country’s school feeding scheme, the National School Nutrition Programme which regularly fed around 10 million children, could not be found.