The Potential Role of Economic Inclusion Programmes to Respond to Those Affected by COVID-19

Edward Archibald, Withlaura Alfers, Courtenay Cabot Venton, Colin Andrews, Aude de Montesquiou, and Puja Vasudeva Datta

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is accentuating the risks facing an increasing number of poor and vulnerable individuals and households in a myriad of ways. In many countries, the pandemic and associated lockdowns have had devastating impacts across several dimensions, including health (e.g. increased mortality and morbidity), economic (e.g. job/livelihood loss or reduced earnings, and some supply shortages), and social (e.g. negative coping mechanisms, disruptions to services such as education, immunisation and other healthcare). These impacts have motivated many governments across the world to use social protection, including social assistance, as a short-term measure to help poor and vulnerable households meet basic needs. As the effects of the crisis evolve, many actors are considering whether and how to complement social assistance measures with additional inputs, components and linkages – including economic inclusion approaches – to help mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and move towards early economic recovery. This paper therefore explores the opportunities and challenges of economic inclusion approaches alongside social assistance responses in the COVID-19 context. It shows how evidence can inform the design of measures to help people recover from the impacts of the pandemic over the medium- and longer-term through the lens of government-led economic inclusion programmes which leverage national social protection systems.