The ILO's Social Protection Monitor presents the latest policy trends based on media announcements on social protection measures. This special report covers social protection responses throughout the world to the COVID-19 crisis between February and April 2020.

ILO’s Social Protection Monitor is based on media/news published online. The Monitor tracks announcements of social protection measures, defined as any policy decision that affects the functioning of a social protection system, from minor parametric adjustments to major developments and reforms, as well as social subsidies. The Monitor is a useful source for addressing the information gap since updates to the comprehensive global social protection statistics reported in the ILO Social Security Inquiry take years to compile.

The monitor offers analysis through grouping interventions by region, date, type (i.e. type of government intervention like new benefits schemes), by function (i.e. sectoral like healthcare or unemployment), and grouping of modal types of interventions.

The ILO's platform uses atypical information sources (news and media reports and public announcements) to provide a more up-to-date, if not 100% comprehensive, update on social protections as the crisis unfolds. The normal means of collecting data through governments would be too slow to provide this information in realtime, and thus this new way, and new digital presentation, allows for more up-date trends analysis and better decision-making.

International Labour Organisation (ILO)