Mr Bitso Bitso

BITSO PAUL BITSO

Msc in Social Protection Financing (University of Mauritius)
Post Graduate Diploma in Social Security (University of Johannesburg)

Bitso may be contacted at: +27 78 906 1145, e-mail address: [email protected] or [email protected]           

Effective from the 1^st of August 2012 he is enrolled for a three years PhD under the Human Economy Programme led by Profs Keith Hart and John Sharp, co-directors of the programme. His area of interest is social protection, which is concerned about the implementation of measures that seek to alleviate poverty and improve the livelihoods of the vulnerable people. For his PhD he intends to research the consequences of disabling workplace injuries on the mineworkers and/or their dependants in South Africa and Lesotho.

His MSc project focused on the impact of the old age pension transfer on the livelihoods the beneficiaries in Lesotho, in which the findings of the study revealed that the pension transfer had indeed made a significant impact, particularly on beneficiaries with relatively smaller household size as opposed to those with much larger household size. Previously, in his career he was involved in banking and later managing workers compensation funds. As a result, he participated in a number of international and regional conferences and presented papers in most of them. 

He is a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Core Group of Social Security Experts. This body was established several years ago with an object of influencing social protection policy decisions amongst the SADC member states. The group achieves its mandate through a number of activities which include the development of a regional code on social protection, organisation of conferences, seminars and exchange of knowledge and expertise. The SADC code on social protection was adopted by SADC states in October 2007.

Publications

He wrote chapter 2 of the book: 
Letlhokwa George Mpedi and Nicola Smit, 2011 (Editors) “Access to social services for non-citizens and the portability of social benefits within the Southern African Development Community (SADC)”, Sun Press.