The lockdowns in response to COVID-19 have interrupted conventional schooling with nationwide school closures in most OECD and partner countries, the majority lasting at least 10 weeks. While the educational community have made concerted efforts to maintain learning continuity during this period, children and students have had to rely more on their own resources to continue learning remotely through the Internet, television or radio. Teachers also had to adapt to new pedagogical concepts and modes of delivery of teaching, for which they may not have been trained. In particular, learners in the most marginalised groups, who don’t have access to digital learning resources or lack the resilience and engagement to learn on their own, are at risk of falling behind.

We, the Labour and Employment Ministers of the G20 members and invited countries, met virtually on the 10th September 2020, to discuss recent global economic and labor market developments and to advance our work towards ‘Empowering People’ and ‘Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for All.’ This year, COVID-19 has brought an unprecedented global challenge with significant human costs. Fighting and overcoming the pandemic remains our highest and overriding priority. We recognize the importance of protecting and promoting decent jobs for all, especially for women and youth, within our domestic and global labor markets. We support comprehensive, robust and adaptive social protection systems and we are committed to tackling inequalities, including gender inequalities. We acknowledge the value of bringing together technology and a human-centered approach including by using Behavioral Insights in employment policymaking..

Countries are taking unprecedented measures to combat the spread of the disease, while ameliorating its pernicious effect on the economy and labour market.

Find out the policies implemented by governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, and the ILO in 188 countries and territories.

Physical distancing is an important part of measures to control covid-19, but exactly how far away and for how long contact is safe in different contexts is unclear. Rules that stipulate a single specific physical distance (1 or 2 metres) between individuals to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing covid-19, are based on an outdated, dichotomous notion of respiratory droplet size. This overlooks the physics of respiratory emissions, where droplets of all sizes are trapped and moved by the exhaled moist and hot turbulent gas cloud that keeps them concentrated as it carries them over metres in a few seconds.12 After the cloud slows sufficiently, ventilation, specific patterns of airflow, and type of activity become important. Viral load of the emitter, duration of exposure, and susceptibility of an individual to infection are also important.

En este documento se presenta una propuesta de estimación y análisis comparado de la sostenibilidad de la deuda pública para los países de Centroamérica para el período 2018-2023. Se pone especial énfasis en las trayectorias de deuda y en los factores internos y externos que pueden modificar dichas sendas, incluyendo el efecto de la pandemia por COVID-19. El objetivo es estimar las posibles trayectorias de la deuda pública en el largo plazo, y evidenciar los riesgos existentes, de acuerdo con supuestos económicos probables, dadas las condiciones de cada país.

64 higher income economies have joined the COVAX Facility, a global initiative that brings together governments and manufacturers to ensure eventual COVID-19 vaccines reach those in greatest need, whoever they are and wherever they live. These 64 economies include commitments from 35 economies as well as the European Commission which will procure doses on behalf of 27 EU member states plus Norway and Iceland.

El proyecto multisectorial para garantizar la compra y distribución equitativa de las vacunas contra el COVID-19 cuando éstas existan cuenta ya con 156 países, informa la agencia sanitaria mundial. También adelanta que cada persona necesitaría dos dosis de la inmunización.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a programmatic policy-based loan of $100 million to support the strengthening of Jamaica’s health systems to better prevent and manage the care of non-communicable diseases.

The main objective of this program is to contribute to the improvement of the health of Jamaica’s population by bolstering comprehensive policies for the reduction of Non-Communicable (Chronic) Diseases (NCDs) risk factors.  It also aims to improve access to an upgraded and integrated primary and secondary health network in prioritized areas, with an emphasis on chronic disease management. The idea is to provide more efficient and higher quality care.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded all of us of the vital role health workers play to relieve suffering and save lives,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “No country, hospital or clinic can keep its patients safe unless it keeps its health workers safe. WHO’s Health Worker Safety Charter is a step towards ensuring that health workers have the safe working conditions, the training, the pay and the respect they deserve.”

States of Fragility 2020 finds that progress on several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – including the crucial Goal 16 relating to peace, justice and strong institutions – has stagnated or declined in fragile locations in recent years. The coronavirus crisis is hurting incomes and stability in already poor and vulnerable countries, as well as health and education – two key building blocks of sustainable development in fragile states.

Reopening societies before health systems are ready “would risk a handful of cases in one area becoming a full-blown outbreak,” PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne said today. “As leaders across the world face pressure to resume social and public life, it’s important that they avoid making decisions in a vacuum. Data about the virus’s spread and the state of health systems and services must guide each country’s plans to reopen, including the mix of preventive measures that should remain in place to keep people safe,” she told a media briefing today.

If the threat from COVID-19 fades more quickly than expected, improved business and consumer confidence could boost global activity sharply in 2021. But a stronger resurgence of the virus, or more stringent lockdowns could cut 2-3 percentage points from global growth in 2021, with even higher unemployment and a prolonged period of weak investment.

Presenting the Interim Economic Outlook, covering G20 economies, OECD Chief Economist Laurence Boone said: “The world is facing an acute health crisis and the most dramatic economic slowdown since the Second World War. The end is not yet in sight but there is still much policymakers can do to help build confidence.”

As the world comes together at an unprecedented virtual session of the 75th UN General Assembly (UNGA), WHO has three messages to share. The first is about equitable access to COVID-19 tools. At UNGA, WHO will call on world leaders to support the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT)-Accelerator, a unique international collaboration to fast-track the development, production and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines globally, while strengthening health systems.

El 25% de los países aún no tiene fecha para el regreso a la escuela con los efectos negativos que los cierres prolongados causados por la pandemia implican para la educación. Las agencias dedicadas a la salud, los niños y la educación urgen a los gobiernos a dar prioridad a la reapertura escolar invirtiendo en medidas de seguridad y protección sanitaria.

The leaders of the multilateral organizations that form the Joint Summit Working Group (JSWG) today highlighted that working collectively must be a priority to strengthen measures to promote integrity, transparency, and accountability, as well as the control of budgets addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Within the framework of a strategic dialogue, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), the International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) announced today the signing of a Letter of Interest to help the countries of the Central American region strengthen their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras particularly have long struggled with barriers to economic development and prosperity, which has exacerbated challenges such as poverty, violence, and illegal migration in the region, now adding to the significant loss of jobs in different productive sectors of the economies.

Many countries are making “green” recovery measures a central part of stimulus packages to drive sustainable, inclusive, resilient economic growth and improve well-being in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. However some countries are also implementing measures that risk having a negative environmental impact and locking in unsustainable growth, according to new OECD analysis discussed by member country ministers today. New OECD analysis, Making the Green Recovery Work for Jobs, Income and Growth, indicates that OECD member governments have committed USD 312 billion of public resources to a green recovery, according to a preliminary estimate that will be refined in the coming months. However, a number of other measures within broader recovery packages are going into “non-green” spending such as fossil fuel investments.

The Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Carissa F. Etienne, said “Action is required at all levels” from local communities to national levels, and from regional to global levels to combat a triple crisis in the Region: a health crisis, a social crisis and an economic crisis. “It is only through concerted and collective action that we will address COVID-19, suppress its transmission and recover onto the path of sustainable development,” Etienne told a Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) conference yesterday.

Pese a los 589.000 millones de dólares dedicados a protección social en 113 países, las iniciativas de protección social no impedirán el aumento de la pobreza, alerta un experto de las Naciones Unidas en derechos humanos, que indica que muchas personas han quedado excluidas de ellas e insta a un replanteamiento global.

Confianza, tecnología, recuperación económica, protección social, seguridad y equilibrio de poderes son los principales retos que tiene la región para que la democracia no salga tan afectada por el impacto de la pandemia, que seguirá presente en las próximas elecciones en diversos países. La contienda electoral en Estados Unidos y sus efectos en América Latina también se abordó en la tercera jornada de la 24 Conferencia Anual CAF.