Social Welfare Responses after COVID-19 in South Africa: A Conceptual Review

South Africa is well known for its developmental social welfare programs and progressive social security benefits. However, the socioeconomic environment in the country was permanently impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed deficiencies in the South African government’s social welfare responses to disadvantaged groups. This conceptual review aims to critically examine South Africa’s social welfare interventions offered to vulnerable groups in reaction to COVID-19, to make necessary recommendations that can be transformative and aligned with social justice principles. This conceptual review drew on rapid appraisal methodology and an empowerment theoretical lens to synthesise accessible research articles and government reports, policy briefs on COVID-19 responses, coupled with the authors’ practice experience. The review found that social welfare responses in South Africa to the vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic included social assistance interventions like Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant, and top-up payments to existing grants as well as provision of developmental social welfare interventions to families, children, victims of crime, and vulnerable groups, such as the homeless and elderly. Although we found evidence that these government efforts incorporated elements of empowerment, we recommend that more could have been done to ensure that they were delivered in a dignified manner. This article contributes to scholarship on the provision of social welfare services in a humane way that achieves social justice, a key value in social work, with possible lessons for other countries.