Bolivia during 2020 was the victim of simultaneous political, economic, and public health crises. The three crises interacted with one another in ways that made each individual crisis more severe. The country’s social policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic was uneven. Emergency cash...

The paper maps out South Korea’s key social policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic based on an analysis of legislation and budget proposals adopted between January 2020 and September 2020. Both data sources indicate that the South Korean government clearly utilized social policy tools to...

This report analyzes the Philippines’ ambitious response to the economic risks and dislocation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020: a set of targeted income support measures that intended to cover unprecedented shares of the population. It...

This essay summarises the broad contours and key characteristics of the Indian government’s social policy response to the global Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing nationwide lockdown. The principal strategy of the Indian government was to implement a large and at times bewildering array of...

Pakistan, a developing country with the fifth largest population in the world, was already developing the Ehsaas program, an umbrella initiative of 134 policies and programs focused on the inclusion and uplift of marginalized people, before the advent of Covid-19. Being a neighbor of China and...

This report outlines Morocco’s social policy response to the Covid-19 pandemic in two main parts. First, it de-scribes the Special Fund dedicated to the management of Covid-19, created in the wake of the health emergency and the subsequent general lockdown from March to June 2020. Second, it...

The major landmark in Eswatini’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was the adoption of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Regulations 2020 under Section 43 of the National Disaster Management Act, Legal Notice No 72 of 27 March 2020. Though this statutory instrument provides mainly for containment...

The social policy response of the Nicaraguan government to the Covid-19 pandemic has been negligible. No significant social policy measures were adopted to alleviate the negative effects that this health crisis has on the general population. No quarantine or state of emergency was declared. The...

This report summarises and analyses Kenya’s social policy response to Covid-19. Following the global outbreak of the pandemic, Kenya’s parliament passed several economic and social laws. Tax law amendments aimed to cushion citizens and businesses from the negative effects of the disease by...

Zimbabwe’s social policy response to Covid-19 unfolded in a context of enduring socioeconomic and political crises. Its main instruments were temporary food relief and cash transfers, though it also included healthcare measures, an economic stimulus package, pension benefits, and “cushioning...