More recently, two types of social assistance schemes have been introduced. One, applied in some countries of Southern Africa, aims at old-age protection; the othertargets extreme poverty, and is applied mostly in low-income countries in Central, East and West Africa (Nino-Zarazua et al., In many Southern African countries, the provision of non-contributory social pension schemes that targeted the elderly poor of certain ethnic groups have been extended as domestic initiatives no longer based on racial discrimination.