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1/12 On 20/04, @juanluisbm, president of the Social Assistance Agency (IMAS), announced the payment of a 125k colones emergency subsidy to 33k poor families not receiving any gov. transfers. They were identified through the country’s social registry. Read: https://bit.ly/2RUJcMP
2/12 Besides the extended eligibility to access the severance payment fund ( https://bit.ly/3brMr68 ), the establishment of #BonoProteger ( https://bit.ly/3brN3Zu ), and the emergency subsidy, other #SocialProtection responses to #COVID19 have included:
3/12 Anticipated payments of both contributory and non-contributory pensions from April to late March by @CCSSdeCostaRica, quickly reacting to the fact that the elderly are a vulnerable group to the #COVID19 crisis. Read https://bit.ly/34PzSii .
4/12 A Law approved by the government reallocating funds from luxury pensions, in order to add 10k social pensions to the non-contributory regime as a response to the #COVID19. Read https://bit.ly/3ezgj2i .
5/12 Even with school closures, payments of the conditional cash transfer programmes Avancemos and Crecemos were continued. Similarly, the school feeding programme was re-adapted, with its resources used to support food distribution at schools. Read https://bit.ly/2Y3pPVN .
6/12 The nursery network for beneficiary of social assistance benefits from the IMAS has remained opened to support workers having to work even during the containment measures. Read https://bit.ly/34P6GIo .
7/12 Humanitarian aid based on food and personal hygiene products has been provided to vulnerable families ( https://bit.ly/3boRR1v ), including indigenous populations ( https://bit.ly/2zj9t0P ).
8/12 #CostaRica has managed to quickly respond to the #COVID19 crisis. The absence of unemployment insurance has put workers at risk, but the legal framework allowing for emergency benefits has been successfully implemented to ensure protection to both formal & informal workers.
9/12 Other instruments were put in place to mitigate the hardship while the financial compensation for workers was being sorted out. The crisis has also revealed the difficult in finding fiscal space to expand #SocialProtection during crisis.
10/12 The crisis puts pressure on both expenses and revenues of the @CCSSdeCostaRica: increases in health expenses and fall in contributions due to higher unemployment caused by the #COVID19 crisis. Read https://bit.ly/3ap0vf9 .
11/12 To makes things more challenging, the social assistance budget is also financed in a procyclical manner. Thus, government estimates a fall of 20% in the social assistance budget due to the fall in the economic activity. Read https://bit.ly/3cxM3mE .
12/12 Finding ways to expand #SocialProtection coverage as part of the #SDG 1, target 1.3, will be a challenging task after the crisis, which will require both improvements on sectoral budget allocation and progressive taxation to guarantee efficiency and equity.
