I recently did a study about the social impacts of COVID-19 in the Pacific, which made me think of some of the lessons the pandemic has given us for policy implementation. In this blog, I share 3 of those lessons and my own reflection.
The need for information for decision making
Our decisions will only be as good as the information we have to make them. The problem is, for some countries the information you need is not the information you have. For small countries in the Pacific, for example, the availability of data is one of their biggest challenges. Things that might seem routine for most countries, like updated national accounts, are still a work in progress for some of the Pacific Island Countries. But even more developed countries, like Peru, also struggled to have adequate databases to target their social protection schemes to respond to the crisis.
An opportunity to innovate
What I found fascinating is how governments and international organizations have found clever ways to get around this information gap. UN Women, for example, analyzed big data before and after the pandemic to identify internet search behaviors on topics related to violence against women. Their goal was to use that as a proxy of the impact of the pandemic on women, considering that traditional mechanisms to measure impact were not available. In the absence of data, the World Bank did phone surveys to understand the impact of COVID-19 on labor mobility, migration, and remittances in the Pacific.
The ubiquity of mobile telephony and access to satellite imagery is allowing data-poor countries to move more quickly. Several countries have used mobile phone data and satellite imagery to quickly inform the expansion of their social protection programs. In Nigeria, a new targeting method is based on census data and high-resolution satellite imagery using machine learning algorithms to identify the location and size of dwellings. Combined with wealth data from the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office (NASSCO), this allows for a mapping of the poorest urban areas.
Governments’ ability to respond effectively depends on having timely and accurate data to inform their decisions. Databases, for example, have played a key role to scale up social protection programs. The pandemic has shown us the need to have data that is comprehensive, accurate, timely updated, and integrated to respond faster and more effectively. The COVID-19 crisis presents an opportunity to institutionalize some of these new systems to help close these data gaps for the future.
Policy implementation needs to be forward-looking
The speed at which the pandemic changes means countries need to act fast to be able to respond instead of reacting. Otherwise, it is like trying to drive while looking at the rear-view all the time, wondering why you are crashing with everything that’s in front of you. The shift from having policy permanently catching up to being in front of emerging issues is not an easy one, particularly when the systems are not in place to be forward looking.
Australia is a good example of how to use alternative data in national statistics to inform policymaking. At the start of the pandemic, the Australian Bureau of Statistics used transactional bank data and employer payroll data to have a better understanding of the impacts of COVID-19. That means having more information, faster. Their traditional monthly Labor Force Survey of 50,000 individuals publishes results with a 4 to 5 week delay. With the data of the Australian Taxation Office they had data on more than 10 million employees and published results within 2.5 weeks. That information combined with bank data allowed them to have an earlier insight on the employment impact during the first wave of COVID-19.
Recognize that the pandemic didn’t happen in a vacuum. Pre-conditions matter.
As we think about strategies for recovery, we also have to think of ways to do it better. One of the not-surprising lessons from the pandemic is the fact that the ability of governments to respond depended on the pre-conditions of the country and the state capacity.
What does building back better mean, then? The answer will vary depending on the country. What seems to be a common thread is the need to have sustainable, adaptive, and effective social protection systems. These mechanisms have been a cushion for shocks and a tool against both new and existing poverty.
To sum up
The pandemic has again shown that there is no substitute for the State. As I’ve said before, strengthening the capacity of governments is not an option but an imperative. Information is an essential asset for decision-making, for forward-looking policies, and is the foundation to build better social protection systems.
