COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia

What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on poverty in Zambia, and how can social protection programs mitigate these effects? This paper estimates the pre-pandemic poverty level in Zambia and then simulates the distributional impact of COV...

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Main Authors:	Paul, Boban Varghese, Finn, Arden, Chaudhary, Sarang, Mayer Gukovas, Renata, Sundaram, Ramya
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2021
Subjects:	CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT POVERTY SOCIAL SAFETY NET SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SHOCK RESPONSIVENESS
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/858911615226832335/COVID-19-Poverty-and-Social-Safety-Net-Response-in-Zambia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35249

id	okr-10986-35249
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-352492022-09-20T00:08:40Z COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia Paul, Boban Varghese Finn, Arden Chaudhary, Sarang Mayer Gukovas, Renata Sundaram, Ramya CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT POVERTY SOCIAL SAFETY NET SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SHOCK RESPONSIVENESS What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on poverty in Zambia, and how can social protection programs mitigate these effects? This paper estimates the pre-pandemic poverty level in Zambia and then simulates the distributional impact of COVID-19 in the country. The paper also estimates the impact of a social cash transfer program that led the COVID response, on poverty levels. In the absence of recent nationally representative household survey data, this is done by updating the consumption distribution in the 2015 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey using annual real per capita gross domestic product growth rates for specific sectors. The study shows that the national poverty headcount rate increased from 54.4 percent in 2015 to 55.8 percent in 2019, and this change was driven entirely by rural areas. By contrast, the economic impact of COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted urban areas and exacerbated the already high poverty levels, with the poverty headcount increasing to 57.6 percent in 2020. Expanding and enhancing cash transfers have been a key policy lever that many countries have used to mitigate the negative economic consequences of the pandemic. Simulations in Zambia suggest that a fully operational social cash transfer program with the current and proposed enhanced transfer amounts has the potential to reduce poverty significantly – by four and six percentage points, respectively. Beyond this specific analysis, the paper makes a case for the innovative use of existing data to inform adaptive or shock responsive social protection, even in largely data poor environments. 2021-03-11T14:53:30Z 2021-03-11T14:53:30Z 2021-03 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/858911615226832335/COVID-19-Poverty-and-Social-Safety-Net-Response-in-Zambia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35249 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9571 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Zambia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT POVERTY SOCIAL SAFETY NET SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SHOCK RESPONSIVENESS
spellingShingle	CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC IMPACT POVERTY SOCIAL SAFETY NET SOCIAL ASSISTANCE SHOCK RESPONSIVENESS Paul, Boban Varghese Finn, Arden Chaudhary, Sarang Mayer Gukovas, Renata Sundaram, Ramya COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia
geographic_facet	Africa Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Zambia
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9571
description	What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on poverty in Zambia, and how can social protection programs mitigate these effects? This paper estimates the pre-pandemic poverty level in Zambia and then simulates the distributional impact of COVID-19 in the country. The paper also estimates the impact of a social cash transfer program that led the COVID response, on poverty levels. In the absence of recent nationally representative household survey data, this is done by updating the consumption distribution in the 2015 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey using annual real per capita gross domestic product growth rates for specific sectors. The study shows that the national poverty headcount rate increased from 54.4 percent in 2015 to 55.8 percent in 2019, and this change was driven entirely by rural areas. By contrast, the economic impact of COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted urban areas and exacerbated the already high poverty levels, with the poverty headcount increasing to 57.6 percent in 2020. Expanding and enhancing cash transfers have been a key policy lever that many countries have used to mitigate the negative economic consequences of the pandemic. Simulations in Zambia suggest that a fully operational social cash transfer program with the current and proposed enhanced transfer amounts has the potential to reduce poverty significantly – by four and six percentage points, respectively. Beyond this specific analysis, the paper makes a case for the innovative use of existing data to inform adaptive or shock responsive social protection, even in largely data poor environments.
format	Working Paper
author	Paul, Boban Varghese Finn, Arden Chaudhary, Sarang Mayer Gukovas, Renata Sundaram, Ramya
author_facet	Paul, Boban Varghese Finn, Arden Chaudhary, Sarang Mayer Gukovas, Renata Sundaram, Ramya
author_sort	Paul, Boban Varghese
title	COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia
title_short	COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia
title_full	COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia
title_fullStr	COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia
title_full_unstemmed	COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia
title_sort	covid-19, poverty, and social safety net response in zambia
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2021
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/858911615226832335/COVID-19-Poverty-and-Social-Safety-Net-Response-in-Zambia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35249
_version_	1764482639283093504

COVID-19, Poverty, and Social Safety Net Response in Zambia

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