whatsnextforSP

By Mariele Diehl and Arnold Groh © S.A.C.S., 2020 Only a fraction of indigenous peoples worldwide has not been displaced from their traditional homelands, even though international law protects their land rights. However, we shall look for ways to turn the CoViD-19 crisis into an opportunity for the rights of indigenous peoples. By acknowledgement of their land rights, indigenous peoples can return to their homelands, revitalise their traditional way of life, support themselves, and at the same time be protected from the pandemic. Indigenous peoples have rights In September 2007, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (short: UNDRIP). As often-marginalised groups,...Read more

Blog written with inputs from Sarah Bailey COVID-19 hit, as several Eastern Caribbean countries and territories were still recovering from the effects of hurricanes. For Small Island Development States, there may be a small silver lining – the pandemic’s impacts have led their governments to take a closer look at their social protection systems:  “No matter the type of crisis, there is always a role for social protection ”. Most Caribbean governments took early measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19   Early measures in response to COVID-19 by governments across the region yielded important results on the health front, but curfews and closed borders interrupted commercial activity and the halt/sharp decline in tourism resulting in...Read more

As beneficiaries of cash transfers navigate the stressors of everyday life during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, behavioral science can enhance the design and implementation of cash transfer programs to improve their impact. Social protection systems are now more important than ever The economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has reemphasized the importance of social protection programs around the world. Low- and middle-income communities, many of which were already vulnerable before the pandemic, now face widespread unemployment. With children out of school across the world, previous and future gains in human capital are at risk. And prices for basic needs, such as food and cleaning supplies, have increased, even as incomes decline. The pandemic necessitates...Read more

Author: Zehra Rizvi and Cecile Cherrier “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” (Albert Einstein). Experimentation and innovation are required to advance social protection for all, but this involves failing. Where is the space for failures and how do we embrace this? Have we failed? Yes, because we haven’t failed enough. In a rapidly changing world, innovation will be key to successfully deliver social protection for all. The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the need to innovate to rapidly expand social protection to often hard-to-reach populations hit by the socio-economic crisis. In complex, uncertain, resource-scare contexts, doing things differently is a MUST. This requires creativity,...Read more

This blog post was written by Gala Dahlet and Ana Ocampo The COVID-19 pandemic has developed into a health, economic and social crisis, threatening decades of progress in poverty reduction for the first time (World Bank, 2020) and significantly increasing food insecurity (IFPRI, 2020), adding to the impacts of conflicts and climate change. These complex and overlapping issues call for coherent approaches. Successes and challenges of the COVID-19 response in rural areas About 80 per cent of the extreme poor live in rural areas and experience more overlapping deprivations in accessing services and infrastructure than their urban counterparts, as well as lower access to social protection and economic opportunities (Castañeda et al, 2018; FAO, 2019). They...Read more

Covid-19 has been called a “game changer” for social protection, an alarm bell for expansion. We don’t yet know the full effects of this crisis, but we already know that inequalities are increasing both within countries and between countries. Tackling inequality will demand even larger efforts than before. To make this leap we need to recognize that social protection is an investment. Social protection as an investment While expansion of social protection has been placed high on the development agenda to meet the effects of COVID-19, actual investments are larger in high-income countries. During the last decade, social protection coverage has increased rapidly. Still, 80 per cent of the poorest in low-income countries lack access to social safety nets,...Read more

Social p rotection g aps left individuals and societies vulnerable to health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19 . A Global Fund for Social Protection could accelerate progress in building social protection floors worldwide and strengthen crisis resilience decisively . Social Protection has been an essential tool to face the pandemic and to mitigate its health, social and economic impact on individuals and societies. So far, 209 countries adopted 1,568 social protection measures in response to COVID-19 - 54 % of these measures were new emergency programs and 46% adjustments of pre-existing contributory and non...Read more

The salience of Social Protection Systems has increased dramatically in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The UN Joint SDG Fund had launched a portfolio of 35 joint programmes in 39 countries with USD 102 million just before the pandemic. This facilitated swift responses and addressing the systemic impact of the pandemic from the onset. The early lessons emerged, in particular, in those programmes which focused on the Shock-Responsive approach. Investing into Social Protection for Leaving No One Behind (LNOB) The portfolio on Social Protection for LNOB is on course to deliver transformative results at scale by January 2022. Upon its launch in November 2018, the first decision of the Fund was to invest USD 70 million, and...Read more

The COVID_19 crisis is having massive human development impacts around the world. According to FAO, even before the outbreak, more than 820 million people were suffering from hunger, while the WFP has projected that the pandemic might double the number of acutely food-insecure people globally, and the World Bank predicts a rise in extreme poverty that could wipe out the progress of the last decades. Despite the urban focus of most containment measures, the negative impacts on rural households have been swift and severe. To mitigate them, countries have put in place a host of social protection measures. These have exposed the fragility of current systems of service provision, while opening up opportunities for more resilient systems in the future. The need to rethink social...Read more