Half a Year Later: COVID-19 in Latin America, and Its Social and Political Effects

COVID-19 and associated measures have ravaged lives and livelihoods in Latin America, with a particularly stark impact on informal and poor households. This roundtable addresses the varied social protection responses of governments in the region, ranging from the broad social protection floor established in Brazil, to virtually no pandemic-induced social assistance in Mexico. The roundtable also addresses their effects on inequality and poverty, and short and medium-term political implications for countries in the region.

Nora Lustig will discuss the main findings of her co-authored study, “The Impact of Covid-19 Lockdowns and Expanded Social Assistance on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico”, and Merike Blofield will discuss the main findings of her co-authored ECLAC study, “Policy expansion in compressed time: Assessing the speed, breadth and sufficiency of post-COVID-19 social protection measures in 10 Latin American countries”. Maria Victoria Murillo will comment based on her recent work on political implications of the current crisis, and Juliana Martínez Franzoni will comment based on her 2016 book “The Quest for Universal Social Policy in the South”. Bert Hoffmann will moderate.

Discussants:

• Prof. Dr. Nora Lustig is Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics and Director of the Commitment to Equity Institute (CEQ) at the Tulane University.

• Prof. Dr. Merike Blofield is Director of the GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies, and Professor of Political Science at the Universität Hamburg.

• Prof. Dr. Maria Victoria Murillo is the Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, and Professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

• Prof. Dr. Juliana Martínez Franzoni is Professor at the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos at the Universidad de Costa Rica.

Moderator:

• Prof. Dr. Bert Hoffmann is Head of the GIGA Berlin Office and Professor at Freie Universität Berlin.