Flows of peoples across borders have increased for a variety of reasons. Nowhere is this more the case than in Southern Africa. One reason for such flows among many is to access a more secure income. Migration across borders is an alternative to social protection at home. A leading world expert on migration recently argued;

“At the moment, social contracts remain State-centric and ill-adapted to a transnational world. Education, health care, pensions and taxation systems remain rigidly fixed to particular States and territories. Over time, there will be a need to conceive of ways in which the provision of social services – such as those relating to taxation, government expenditure, pensions and qualifications – can be adapted to be mobile across international borders in a transnational world” (Betts, 2010)

In a recent study of the problems that migrants had in accessing adequate social protection one of us concluded “that …the basic rights to social assistance of all free movers need still be addressed…some form of both global and regional funding is needed to provide it so that…the needs of established refugees, asylum seekers, irregular migrants and even legal free movers who fall upon hard times can be met” (Deacon, 2011).

Even within South Africa where “the 1998 Refugee Act, which is recognized as one of the most progressive pieces of refugee legislation in the world….(which provides that)…asylum seekers enjoy wide-ranging rights including the right to basic health services, basic education for children, work and study” (Makhema (2009)) , the right to social assistance is restricted. The social welfare grants provided through the Social Assistance Act are explicitly restricted to citizens and permanent residents (including the old age pension, the child support grant, and the war veterans grant) (Makhema (2009)).

The case therefore exists for finding a way of providing social protection for all that does not fall into the trap of the exclusionary provisions of national taxation which governments are reluctant to use to fund mobile populations. At the same time the case exists for proving a social protection floor across the region to discourage migration in search of better welfare system across borders.