Key points
The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a wake-up call alerting the global community to the urgency of accelerating progress in building social protection systems, including floors. Policymakers in developing countries should seek to the extent possible to design emergency crisis responses with a longer-term perspective in mind in order to strengthen social protection systems and decent work, including by supporting transitions from the informal to the formal economy.
Ensuring an adequate emergency response and developing a longer-term strategy for strengthening
social protection systems and crisis-preparedness in developing countries requires a number of measures:
 Guarantee access to quality health care by mobilizing additional public funds to boost budgets
as part of their emergency response, while safeguarding and extending the coverage of social
health protection mechanisms during and beyond the crisis.
 Enhance income security through cash transfers by increasing benefit levels and extending coverage through existing or new programmes;
adapting entitlement conditions, obligations and delivery mechanisms; and ensuring that, where necessary, humanitarian cash transfers complement and further strengthen national social protection systems.