The Covid-19 crisis has brought social protection to the forefront as a crisis response tool. It has also exposed social protection gaps and limitations. Some of the population groups most adversely affected by the crisis – women, informal workers, urban dwellers, refugees – are also those excluded from or underserved by social protection.
Refugees have been supported by innumerable cash or voucher interventions implemented by international humanitarian and development actors during the Covid-19 pandemic, but only a few of these have explicitly aligned or integrated with government social protection responses. Refugees residing in low- and middle-income countries have mostly been excluded from government social protection responses, and where they have been included (largely in Latin America and the Caribbean) this typically represents a continuation of pre-pandemic policy.
The surge in Covid cases and deaths in India in April led to record highs for the global number of daily cases, and only the under-counting of deaths is likely to have meant that there were not also record global highs for daily deaths. This pandemic is far from over, even if it is starting to seem like that to the high-income countries that make up the G7.
Italy holds the G20 presidency at a crucial moment when the world is confronted with the worst global pandemic in the past century. The economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 crisis has had major impact on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda.
The pandemic not only acts as a multiplier of existing developmental and socioeconomic challenges in Africa – and thereby contributes to increasing
migratory pressure in and out of the continent – but it also reveals interdependencies between Africa and the EU. It is hoped that the current health and socioeconomic crisis would also act as an opportunity to substantially rethink the relations between the two continents on, and well beyond migration.
Getting the pandemic globally and permanently under control is key to mitigating its impacts on health, society and the economy. This requires that a large proportion of the global population need be vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible, which necessitates global solidarity between states in the global North and global South and between societal actors worldwide. Global problems need global solutions.
