Since the virus arrived in countries least equipped to deal with it, a global response is needed to get ahead of the health pandemic as it hits vulnerable populations and weak health systems across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia with grave consequences on the most vulnerable. In this regard, the OECD's Development Policy Brief COVID-19 and developing countries: What policies and partnerships to respond, reset and rebuild?​ identifies key aspects in the medium- and long-term strategies in order to attain economic recovery and social cohesion and to build resilience and puts forth five key considerations for governments​ as part of an international response. 

The Development Initiatives blog on What actions are required to mitigate the impacts of coronavirus on the poorest and most vulnerable people? states that without connecting humanitarian, development and peace approaches, the impact of the unfolding crisis will be worse, we will see hard-won development gains reversed and people falling back into poverty. Moreover, Development Initiatives asks How visible are the vulnerable in the data on coronavirus? and argues that better data infrastructure is needed to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the most vulnerable and poorest people, what help is needed and whether support is working.

A brief, developed by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, highlights the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on certain groups of people and offers some key policy recommendations to ensure no one is left behind in COVID-19 prevention, response and recovery. The brief reflects the interventions and feedback of speakers and participants in the 3 April 2020 webinar on COVID-19: Leave No One Behind, co-organised with Help Age International and UN Women.

The 'From Poverty to Power' blog explores​ How Covid and Inequality Feed Off Each Other: Launching the 2020 Commitment to Reduce Inequality Index​​​. The recently published third edition of the index ​of which measures governments are taking in three areas proven to be essential if a country is going to reduce the gap between rich and poor.  These are pro-poor public services (on education, health and social protection); the progressivity of the tax system and finally the extent to which labour rights and minimum wages are in place.

​Some ​of the preventive measures recommended by the WHO, such as recommended social distancing, are hardly applicable or even unfit in densely populated urban areas, including slums and informal settlements. Such places are thus potential hotspots to spread the disease. Additionally, extreme weather events and natural disasters ​pose an additional challenge to several countries, such as India and the Philippines, when trying to contain the pandemic. 

© Dewald Brand/Miran for Oxfam

Another measure – the main defence against the virus – is washing hands with soap and clean water (for 20 seconds!) or to self-isolate if sick. But what if you cannot do either of those things? One billion people live in slums or informal settlements, where water for basic needs is in short supply and where space is constrained and rooms are often shared. Two billion persons globally do not have access to safe water services. Yet discussion about vulnerability in these contexts has been startlingly absent. Read more on the issue here fromIDS and fromOHCHR.

Certain groups of people are differently and to varying degrees impacted by the pandemic. Persons with disabilities are not only at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, but they also face barriers in accessing healthcare services as well as disruptions in their usual healthcare service provision. A series of practical tools for a disability-inclusive COVID-19 response can be found in this document of the Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)’s guidance further highlights key points to consider to ensure that people with disabilities are included in programming responses to COVID-19. ​

Among the vulnerable groups, children directly experience the consequences of the pandemic by COVID-19 induced school closures. Girls and children from low-income households are affected most as disruption of education may cause an early drop-out from school. Moreover, for many, free school meals are no longer available with the widespread closure of schools. For more on the issue, consult:

 and  Save the Children.

​The disproportionate impact on women is not limited to access to health services as wider economic and social problems caused by the pandemic disproportionately touch upon women's lives. For instance, India's unemployment rate is at a new high as 27% of the population is unemployed with grave consequences on the most marginalised women: ​

As part of their series that aims to better understand and explain the data on COVID-19, Development Initiatives published a background paper presenting a critical appraisal of the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 in Kenya. It focuses​ on the economic ​impacts – especially on housing, transport, food security and the labour force - and then assesses the governmental measures taken by the government and their effects on the lives of Kenyans with a focus on the most vulnerable and poorest people. ​​

The United Nations University's World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) released a worrying report on the estimated impact of the COVID-19 crisis on global poverty​, which could increase for the first time since 1990. The COVID-19 crisis could lead to 80-400 million new poor living under $1.90 per day and potentially take extreme poverty back by over 1 billion people. These numbers represent a reversal of 20–30 years in global poverty reduction:​​

What actions should be taken to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the poorest and most vulnerable?

Several scholars and practitioners see in social protection an important response mechanism to support those without adequate safety nets. It can help to mitigate some consequences of the crisis, to provide vital support and strengthen resilience of the most vulnerable people:

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© World Bank

• Despite progress in recent years in extending social protection in many parts of the world, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many countries were still facing significant challenges in making the human right to social security a reality for all. This ILO report​ provides a global overview of progress made around the world over the past decade in extending social protection and building rights-based social protection systems and covers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights the importance of a determined recovery strategy to build rights-based social protection systems based on a shared understanding of social protection as an investment with high returns, offering a way to end poverty, reduce inequalities and reinvigorate the social contract.​

• The World Bank's social protection unit published regular updates on the global social protection response. As of 11 ​December 2020, a total of 215​ countries/territories have planned or put in place 1'414​ social protection measures.​Find further details on the living paper here» 
  

• The UN’s independent expert on extreme poverty said in a report -Looking Back to Look Ahead: A Rights-Based Approach to Social Protection in the Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery​ - that ​while governments have adopted more than 1,400 social protection measures since the outbreak of COVID-19, they were largely insufficient, and warned the worst impacts on poverty were yet to come. “The social safety nets put into place are full of holes,” said Olivier De Schutter, calling on world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York to strengthen measures to help the poor. “These current measures are generally short-term, the funding is insufficient, and many people will inevitably fall between the cracks.” ​

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© Jointly produced by Ugo Gentilini with the socialprotection.org team (Mariana Balboni, Patricia Velloso, Fabio Veras, Fabiana Pullen Sousa, and Marina Carvalho), Valentina Barca, and Martina Bergthaller​ 

• The Asian Development Bank makes recommendations on how governments can strengthen social protection to minimise the economic impact of the COVID-19 on the poorest people. Read more»
  

• In its new paper, UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Economist Network examines potential social security responses that countries in Asia can put in place. It provides a brief overview of social security systems in Asia, examines responses that Asian countries have already implemented and proposes a range of more effective complementary or alternative approaches. Read more»​
  

• Cash transfers have been a common measure implemented by governments to reduce the impact of income loss and unemployment. The Center for Global Development underlines the implications of the design of those programmes to which people have access and control over the distributed funds. Especially, given persistent gender gaps in financial and digital literacy, access to technology, and identification documents, women may fall short unless governments design and implement programmes with those gender-specific constraints in mind. Read this paper for a case study of women's access to cash transfer in Pakistan​.​