COVID Relief Archive for Lessons on urban Social Protection (CORALS)

IIED, the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and Dialogue on Shelter Trust have analysed a range of relief efforts implemented by state and non-state actors that were specifically developed for informal settlements and informal workers in Delhi, Jaipur (and other parts of Rajasthan) and Harare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The analysis focused on developing policy and programming lessons for:

• Urban social protection at times of crisis, and
• Efforts to build more resilient cities post-crisis, with a focus on lessons that ensure the inclusion of informal workers and settlements.

Our research has found specific lessons for social protection delivery in the context of informal work and settlements in cities, leading to this COVID relief archive for lessons on urban social protection.

This archive of relief initiatives in housing, water and sanitation, food security, income and wage transfers for informal workers across Delhi, Rajasthan and Harare also identifies programming and policy opportunities for institutionalising and scaling up interventions.

The contents of the archive consider how relief efforts anticipated the challenges of delivering social protection to informal workers or within informal settlements, and how they designed relief to be effective within these contexts.

The archive was launched at an online event in November 2023 featuring speakers involved in the work in India and Zimbabwe, and a video recording of the discussion is available.

This work was funded by the Covid Collective (supported by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)).

Key partners and their role

India's capital, and the country's second biggest city, Delhi had a population of over 11 million people in 2011, the time of the last census, and this is now believed to be over 32 million, spread over 1,484 square kilometres.

While poverty has steadily declined in India over the last two decades, the COVID-19 pandemic showed that vulnerability, even for employed urban workers, remains high. In Delhi, six million people applied for state emergency food support beyond the 7.2 million already covered by the National Food Security Act.

The role played by non-state actors – trade unions, worker organisations, civil society groups and individual networks – was pivotal in providing support across neighbourhoods, communities and worker groups. These groups had well established infrastructure, and were networked, recognised and equitably distributed before the pandemic, enabling them to respond to the crisis and lockdowns more quickly, more efficiently and more sustainably to provide what was needed, including food relief.

A series of videos about the Delhi Coordinated Relief network explore its impact, including the interview below highlighting how more than 50 civil society organisations, community-based organisations and activists worked together to distribute more than 75,000 food kits to beneficiaries.

And a policy briefing reflects on the lessons for social protection design and delivery in megacities in the global South.

Jaipur is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. As of 2011, the city had a population of 3.1 million, making it the tenth most populous city in the country, and this is now estimated to be over four million.

Rental housing is a key form of access to housing for migrants in the city. Inability to pay rent during COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in significant financial duress for those largely living on rent such as domestic workers in Jaipur, leading them to return to work at lower salaries and longer hours of work and setting back years of union negotiation to assert labour rights.

One organisation that had a significant impact was the Rajasthan Mahila Kaamgar Union, which extended access to cash transfers and provided food and housing relief to domestic workers. It identified 7,000 of the most vulnerable domestic workers for a state cash transfer and provided the government with relevant information, including bank account details, to ensure delivery.

The union also repeatedly intervened to ensure protection against evictions and to negotiate rental waivers and moratoriums. And its securing of social protection during the pandemic, in the form of financial support for domestic workers, helped thousands of people. One of its key roles was to represent domestic worker’s interest with the state as well as in non-state networks.

But what were the lessons for strengthening the delivery of social protection to informal workers, and why should rent be considered not just as relief but as a basic tenet in urban social protection frameworks?

With COVID-19 affecting informal economy workers across Africa and globally, in Harare local forms of social protection helped many cope with the economic and health consequences, as they lacked access to social insurance or assistance for extreme poverty.

Community savings groups provided crucial emotional and financial support to their members while two video case studies show how livelihoods were affected by the pandemic.

While lockdowns may have ended, community focus groups reveal the long-term social and economic impacts on their everyday life, and there are also reflections on the effectiveness of social protection schemes in Zimbabwe and the changing relationships with government.

After concerns over the lack of transparency and inclusivity in Zimbabwe social protection programmes targeting beneficiaries during and after the pandemic, communities provide a series of recommendations and highlight the lessons from events during the crisis.