The “Social protection responses to COVID-19” task force comes to an end

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), the IPC-IG joined forces with the socialprotection.org platform, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of Australia to create the initiative Social protection responses in times of COVID-19.

Countries were hit hard by the consequences of the pandemic and never before has social protection been so discussed, proving to be crucial to lessen the impacts of such a crisis. The goal of the task force was to disseminate information and promote discussions on how social protection systems and measures are being used worldwide to respond to the COVID-19 emergency. It resulted in a special newsletter titled “Social protection in times of #COVID19”, a webinar series and an Online Community (OC), which counted with the collaboration of various organisations and individuals from all over the world. 

Now, after 23 issues of the newsletter, 32 webinars and over 25,000 hits on the Online Community, the task force is coming to an end, but the OC will still stay open for discussions and the exchange of information regarding COVID-19 and the measures taken in response to the ongoing social and economic impacts resulting from it. To learn more, watch this video. 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have supported the initiative or used the information shared therein to improve the responses in your own country!