The pandemic's silver lining—a trove of data on social protection programs

Development economist Rema Hanna sees the thousands of new social protection programs created during the COVID-19 pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study the best ways to help lift people out of poverty. The Harvard Kennedy School professor tells PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli that with the pandemic came massive economic and social disruption—people couldn’t work, and there were widespread closures of not just businesses but also schools and other social institutions. Governments and relief organizations leapt into action, and by last May more than 220 countries or territories had either planned or implemented more than 3,000 new social protection programs. Social protection refers to policies and programs that insulate people against the risks and shocks of life—like COVID, natural disasters, and economic downturns—but that also provide ongoing financial assistance to low-income families and work to break poverty cycles. Hanna sees those thousands of new programs not just as a lifeline for desperate people, but also a chance to study which kinds of social protection schemes work better than others, and how research-based policies can address intractable problems like poverty and inequity into the future. She recently launched the Social Protection Initiative, a project that will involve hundreds of academics and researchers across the globe.