This “living paper” contributes to the global knowledge on how countries are responding to the pandemic by documenting real-time actions in a key area of response – that is, social protection measures planned or implemented by governments.

This second edition of the “living paper” contributes to the global knowledge on how countries are responding to the pandemic by documenting real-time actions in a key area of response – that is, social protection measures planned or implemented by governments. For the purpose of this revie ... w, we organized interventions by social assistance, social insurance and labor market programs. For the latter measures, we deliberately focused on supply-side programs (e.g., mostly wage subsidies and other activation programs). In most cases, data sources include official information published in government websites, while in many cases we reported information from global and national news outlets. In some cases, information was provided directly by country-based experts, while the full database was validated and integrated by regional and country social protection teams at the World Bank. Overall, findings should be considered preliminary and interpreted with caution. more