Being Prepared and Acting First: A series of case studies on UNICEF’s role in the delivery of effective social protection responses to COVID-19
About
COVID-19 is estimated to have pushed an additional 142 million children into monetary poverty. The impacts on children’s lives have been severe with disruptions to essential services including education, nutrition, healthcare, water, child care, sanitation and child protection with an estimated 1.2 billion children now living in multidimensional poverty. Furthermore, structural inequalities affect children, including in terms of gender, age, geographic location, ethnicity and migration status.
Social protection has been a critical pillar in the socio-economic response to COVID-19 with more than 220 counties and territories expanding their social protection coverage, with expenditure of more than US$2.9 trillion globally. Shock-responsive social protection systems, when designed appropriately, can have transformative impacts particularly on vulnerable groups including women and girls and children with disabilities.
Built on two decades of experience providing social protection support to governments, UNICEF’s response to COVID-19 focused on building resilient, shock-responsive, inclusive and sustainable social protection systems in over 115 countries in a variety of contexts, including humanitarian and fragile contexts. This compendium of case studies provides a detailed look at UNICEF’s role in the effective delivery of social protection responses through the experience of eight countries:
These case studies provide reflections on strategic partnerships, lessons learned and highlights ways forward for strengthening inclusive social protection systems that are resilient to shocks.
