Adaptive Social Protection Agenda Lessons from Responses to COVID-19 Shock: The State of Social Protection Report 2025 Background Paper #2

Publication:
Adaptive Social Protection Agenda Lessons from Responses to COVID-19 Shock: The State of Social Protection Report 2025 Background Paper #2

dc.contributor.author	Tesliuc, Emil Daniel
dc.contributor.author	Fonteñez, Maria Belen
dc.date.accessioned	2025-04-09T13:39:38Z
dc.date.available	2025-04-09T13:39:38Z
dc.date.issued	2025-04-09
dc.description.abstract	The paper examines the social protection response to the COVID-19 pandemic across 76 emerging and developing economies (EDEs) to identify lessons on how to make these systems more resilient against risks, shocks, and crises at the individual, household, or national level. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered signiﬁcant expansions in social protection systems across EDEs, with responses varying based on countries’ existing infrastructure and income levels. The analysis of 76 EDEs revealed that countries used approximately 37 percent of their social protection programs to respond to COVID-19, with social assistance programs being the most frequently used response (73 percent of total programs). EDEs increased their real per capita social protection spending by an average of 28 percent, with low-income countries (LICs) and high-income countries (HICs) showing the largest increases at around 40 percent and 32 percent, respectively. The effectiveness of responses was strongly correlated with preexisting social protection systems, economic conditions, labor market factors, and digital infrastructure. Countries with more developed social protection systems, formal labor markets, and digital payment infrastructure before the pandemic were better positioned to rapidly scale up their responses, highlighting the importance of maintaining robust routine social protection programs and delivery systems to enable effective crisis response.	en
dc.identifier	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099907504032517291
dc.identifier.doi	10.1596/43038
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10986/43038
dc.language	English
dc.language.iso	en_US
dc.publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
dc.relation.ispartofseries	Social Protection Discusson Paper; No. 2509, March 2025
dc.rights	CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holder	World Bank
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/igo
dc.subject	GOOD HEALTH
dc.subject	WELL-BEING
dc.subject	SOCIAL PROTECTION RESPONSE
dc.subject	COVID-19 PANDEMIC
dc.subject	SOCIAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
dc.title	Adaptive Social Protection Agenda Lessons from Responses to COVID-19 Shock	en
dc.title.subtitle	The State of Social Protection Report 2025 Background Paper #2	en
dc.type	Working Paper (Numbered Series)
dspace.entity.type	Publication
okr.associatedcontent	https://hdl.handle.net/10986/42842 State of Social Protection Report 2025: The 2-Billion-Person Challenge
okr.date.disclosure	2025-04-09
okr.date.lastmodified	2025-04-05T20:04:11Z	en
okr.doctype	Working Paper (Numbered Series)
okr.doctype	Publications & Research
okr.docurl	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099907504032517291
okr.guid	099907504032517291
okr.identifier.docmid	IDU-f24d1693-7593-43cf-b70b-b26e2d483891
okr.identifier.externaldocumentum	40004908
okr.identifier.internaldocumentum	40004908
okr.identifier.report	200229
okr.import.id	7054
okr.imported	true	en
okr.language.supported	en
okr.pdfurl	https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099907504032517291/pdf/IDU-f24d1693-7593-43cf-b70b-b26e2d483891.pdf	en
okr.region.geographical	World
okr.topic	Health, Nutrition and Population::Communicable Diseases
okr.topic	Health, Nutrition and Population::Health Economics & Finance
okr.topic	Social Protections and Labor::Labor Markets
okr.topic	Social Protections and Labor::Social Protections & Assistance
okr.unit	Social Protection & Labor AFR 2 (HAWS2)