Government response regimes to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Global South

ARZA, CAMILA; STAAB, SILKE; TABBUSH, CONSTANZA

Congreso; Congreso Anual de la Asociación de Estudios Latinoamericanos (LASA); 2023

LASA

The pandemic severely disrupted economic production, labour relations, and family livelihoods around the world. In 18 months since the outbreak, the virus affected over 217 million people and 4.6 million people died. Soon after the outbreak, governments started to implement a broad range of economic, fiscal, labour market and social protection measures to mitigate the social costs of the crisis. These responses varied widely across countries, both in scope and structure. How did countries respond when facing such a massive and multi-dimensional shock? Beyond its direct impacts on health and human lives, the pandemic exacerbated multiple socioeconomic risks, and therefore required simultaneous public action in multiple domains, to support business, protect workers and families against job and income loss, provide food security, and support families and women in particular facing growing care demands and higher risks of domestic violence. In this paper we evaluate how governments addressed these multiple risks. We focus on four main risks – business, labour market, income loss and poverty, and VAW, and analyze patterns of government response across the Global South.