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Coronavirus is a devastating blow to children in poverty |
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Whilst the coronavirus has so far resulted in less severe cases among children, it can decimate their lives in a different way. The ‘physical distancing’ measures increasingly required to contain the virus mean parents are unable to work, as ‘business as usual’ is rapidly grinding to a halt across the world. Meanwhile traditional care providers – schools and nurseries – have had to close. Millions of children living in vulnerable communities in countries all around the world will suffer from the far reaching economic and social impacts of the measures needed to contain the pandemic. To avoid lasting damage to their future, we must act now – rapidly scaling up support for children whose families income is insecure and provide the social protection they urgently need. Read more
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A Joint Statement on the Role of Social Protection in Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic |
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We, representatives of UN system agencies, other multilateral and bilateral development agencies, donor governments, and civil society observers that make up the Social Protection Inter-Agency Cooperation Board (SPIAC-B), committed to the realization of SDGs 1.3 and 3.8, call for urgent social protection measures to respond to the rapidly evolving COVID19 pandemic. COVID-19 is a global health emergency with significant immediate as well as longer-term social and economic implications. It exposes some of the problems caused by inadequate social protection coverage, that prevent people from: Read more
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Don't say nobody warned us |
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The message could not have been clearer: “There is a very real threat of a rapidly moving, highly lethal pandemic of a respiratory pathogen killing 50 to 80 million people and wiping out nearly 5% of the world’s economy. A global pandemic on that scale would be catastrophic, creating widespread havoc, instability and insecurity.”
This prediction was published in September 2019, several months before the identification of the first Covid-19 patient, by Gro Harlem Bruntland, former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), and by Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, as co-chairs of the the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. The Board’s report entitled A World at Risk was conclusive: “The world is not prepared.” Read more
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Beyond health workers, millions more need better conditions to beat Covid-19 |
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As the world is swept by the COVID19 global health crisis, millions of public service workers - mostly local and regional government employees– are on the front line of the emergency, putting their lives at risk to ensure our safety.
PSI urges national, local and regional government authorities to listen to public service workers and their unions as they express their legitimate needs to guarantee continued, effective, and safe services for all at a time of unprecedented crisis.
PSI calls on them to refer to the comprehensive PSI Concept note on the COVID 19 response. Read more
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COVID-19: Social protection systems failing vulnerable groups |
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If the COVID-19 pandemic has sent the world one message, it is that we are only as safe as the most vulnerable among us. Those who are unable to quarantine themselves or to get treatment endanger their own lives and the lives of others, and if one country cannot contain the virus, others are bound to be infected, or even re-infected. And yet, around the world, social-protection systems are failing miserably at safeguarding the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable groups.
Nearly 40% of the world’s population has no health insurance or access to national health services. Governments must use the momentum created by the COVID-19 pandemic to make rapid progress toward collectively financed, comprehensive, and permanent social-protection systems. Read more
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