Center For Global Development (16.02.2022) South Africa responded to the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown using a combination of existing social protection programmes, unemployment insurance, and additional measures to support those most affected. This paper reviews policies and implementation with the objective of highlighting lessons for the global community, including on the use of digital mechanisms.

 WTW (28.02.2022) Provincial and municipal governments throughout China are extending parental and childcare leave to encourage more births.

brookings.edu (23.02.2022) Interest in artificial intelligence (AI) as an instrument for improving efficiency in the public sector is at an all-time high. This interest is motivated by the ambition to develop neutral, scientific, and objective techniques of government decisionmaking (Harcourt 2018). As of April 2021, governments of 19 European countries had launched national AI strategies.

Xinhua (21.02.2022) China's State Council has released a plan for the development of the country's elderly care services system during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), in its latest step to implement a national strategy to address population aging. The plan specifies major goals and tasks for the five-year period, including expanding the supply of elderly care services, improving the health support mechanism for the elderly, and advancing the innovative and integrated development of service models.

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) (10.02.2022) The COVID-19 epidemic broke out in Wuhan, capital of the Hubei Province in China in early 2020. This One Pager discusses factors that enabled the country to support affected groups in a timely manner and how this experience could inform social protection expansion efforts elsewhere.

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) (10.02.2022) The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the foundations of the economy and provoked devastating social effects in all countries of the world, with Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) one of the most affected regions. The region is experiencing deteriorating levels of poverty and extreme poverty, most significantly affecting children and adolescents. This One Pager discusses digital payment systems for social protection interventions in the region.

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG)  (10.02.20222) This One Pager reflects on how to improve social protection systems in Latin America and the Caribbean after the COVID-19 pandemic, analysing how it can ensure food security and social and economic ‘double inclusion’. In particular, it provides a regional overview of the social protection measures to respond to COVID-19 in rural areas, and analyses four country-level examples that show promising features for building back better during the recovery process.

brookings.edu (17.02.2022) The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed an estimated 124 million people into extreme poverty globally, the first increase in extreme poverty in 20 years. To meet the magnitude of this need, governments around the world have dramatically ramped up social protection measures, and in particular cash transfers, which comprised one-third of all COVID-related social protection programs. A staggering 17 percent of the world’s population, or 1.3 billion people, were covered by at least one COVID-related cash payment between 2020 and 2021.

africanarguments.org (10 febrary 2022) In 2020, when the pandemic began, many governments worldwide undertook the task of channeling emergency support to their most vulnerable citizens. This task, made more difficult by the unprecedented public health restrictions implemented in various settings, was fraught with difficulties. This included ensuring that help reached those who needed it the most, and that precious resources did not go to people who did not need support.

UN News (07.02.2022) Opening the session, the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Liu Zhenmin, argued that the pandemic had highlighted the critical role of social policies.  “The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated inequalities, and multiple forms of deprivation”, Mr. Zhenmin said, remembering that many countries reacted by instituting emergency measures.  “One key lesson is the importance of universal access to social protection, to enhance economic and food security, in times of crisis”, he said.