COVID-19: Pakistan among top nations in Asia for social protection

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has been labelled as one of the top-ranked countries in Asia having the highest response to social protection amid coronavirus crisis at a global conference hosted by the International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG).

The Unicef, UN and IPC-IG conducted the study to assess the social protection response in the region focusing on an extensive mapping and overview of how social protection measures were implemented by the countries in Asia and the Pacific region during the ongoing health crisis.

Pakistan covers the highest number of responses to social protection in Asia through Ehsaas Emergency Cash, revealed the study. "Afghanistan included many humanitarian interventions; hence Pakistan tops the list”, said Marina Andrade, a researcher from the IPC-IG team, adding that “south Asian countries had a larger number of social protection responses to COVID-19 when compared with other Asian nations”.

“Regarding coverage, Pakistan, Timor Leste, Tuvalu and Sri Lanka implemented important changes to increase the number of beneficiaries,” she added.

With the moderation from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the opening panel discussion had a regional focus particularly on Asia and the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean..

Read more: WHO asks world to learn from Pakistan's fight against COVID-19

Shedding light on the scale and ambition of Ehsaas Emergency Cash, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s aide on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr Sania Nishtar said: “Within 10 days of COVID-19 lockdown, the government of Pakistan had launched the Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme, providing urgent cash payments to over 15 million households.

The $1.25 billion safety-net programme was rolled out at an unprecedented speed, designed in the short-term to offer immediate relief in the form of $75 to the poorest and the hardest hit families.”

She further added: “The programme's end-to-end digital approach, with transparency hard-wired into its design, offers lessons about how to use personal identification systems. By combining phones, internet connectivity and national IDs, we were able to create a digital, demand-based social-protection system, enabling those in distress to seek emergency cash support.”

“Overall, the Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme not only helped our country respond to the immediate crisis, providing relief for the poorest households in Pakistan but also put in place critical building blocks for a stronger and more inclusive financial sector in Pakistan,” she concluded

The global e-conference provided an opportunity for taking stock, exchanging information and facilitating learning on social protection responses to COVID-19.