How SA can protect vulnerable households during lockdown
(WorldNews Politics)

South Africa`s COVID-19 lockdown is likely to have a devastating impact on the incomes of workers and their dependants. There is broad agreement that the lockdown is a necessary public health response. But the economic damage that it will do to the poor needs to be addressed urgently. We project that, in the absence of an intervention targeted at households, the extreme poverty rate among these will almost triple. Fortunately, the South African state has access to a vast social grant infrastructure that allows it to immediately reach most of the poorest households. The country already distributes and 12.5 million of these are child support grants. To support precarious households that are...