This contribution concerns social protection innovation in China and Africa as regards aging populations and social security extension to informal workers. China has adopted and extended several contributory schemes and non-contributory arrangements. Yet, the country faces significant challenges in terms of a funding gap, high urban contribution rates, inadequate benefits and an existing benefit gap, inequality in the treatment of public versus private sector workers, and insufficient migrant worker coverage and portability arrangements. While population aging is less of a problem in most African countries, African retirement arrangements experience challenges in relation to funding limitations, and a host of shortcomings as regards contributory schemes and non-contributory arrangements. China has seen a decline in the numbers of those who work in the informal economy. Ensuring proper coverage of such workers have included strengthened labor market regulation: An integrated approach is called for. In Africa, access by these workers to social security is limited. Attempts to achieve coverage extension have included conceptual developments, institutional initiatives, tailor-made design modalities, and a range of supportive arrangements (such as access to finance and to markets). All these developments reflect a new appreciation of the leading role of the state in the provisioning of social security.