Government Responses to COVID-19 and Their Implications on Food Security in Indonesia

COVID-19 has triggered unprecedented movement restrictions measure and disrupted to the lives, economic and social, around the world. Indonesia continues to be severely affected by COVID-19. Pandemic inevitably threatens food security particularly for poor and most vulnerable groups. The poor and most vulnerable groups including lower income workers and informal sectors have less protection than formal sectors. In addition, increasing of unemployment has lowered the purchasing power and may threaten to access to food. To anticipate and mitigate the emerging global food crises predicted by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations as result of COVID-19. There are two keys priority policy taken by government, (1) social safety nets program to reduce the economic burden of the low income society during the pandemic and (2) food estate program to strengthening government food reserves at local level with mega food estate project outside Java started in October 2020. These two programs are not without controversies and critics. This chapter examines COVID-19 and its implications on food security in Indonesia. We examine government response and challenges in strengthening food security in times of COVID-19 and its implications on the achievements of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 and 2 zero poverty and hunger in Indonesia. This study uses literature review and published public materials to collect and analyze the data. We conclude that targeted social safety protection remains a critical policy in times of pandemic. In the implementation, it needs to be improved particularly on data of beneficiaries through one data policy to address food insecurity toward poor and vulnerable groups. Investing in a sustainable future forms a pillar of the COVID-19 response. Priority to strengthen resilience of the local food system and facilitate food production at local level with ensuring smallholders have financial support and minimizing the impact to the environment is critical rather than mega project with causing more land tenure conflicts and environmental degradation. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.

Racial framing of pandemic outcomes has conditional indirect effects on support for COVID-19 mitigation policies: Examining moral and threat-based mediating mechanisms

Two studies explored the intersection between the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing fight for racial justice. The pandemic has exacerbated existing racial inequalities in the United States in terms of public health and economic outcomes, and it is well-established that individuals higher in racial bias are less likely to support social safety net programs such as those meant to improve public health and reduce poverty. This is particularly true among individuals who perceive racial minorities as overbenefitting from safety net programs. Accordingly, the primary focus of the current studies was to examine whether framing the pandemic in terms of its disproportionate impact on minorities would reduce support for pandemic mitigation policies. In addition, we examine whether such effects were mediated through psychological mechanisms of moral outrage and perceptions of realistic and symbolic threat, and moderated by participants' racial bias. Participants' belief in a just world was included as a covariate given its established role in predicting many related social outcomes. Results suggested that racial framing interacts with participants' racial bias to affect policy support indirectly through multiple mechanisms. Broad implications regarding the relationship between racial bias and public support for a strong social safety net are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Mitigating the impact of Covid-19: Social Safety Net from Islamic perspective

PurposeThis study aims to propose priority solutions for mitigating the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic through the Social Safety Net (SSN) based on the Islamic objectives. Design/methodology/approachThe analytic network process method is used in this study. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders were used to collect data and supplemented by a literature review to explore comprehensive information. FindingsThe findings indicate different opinions among experts, including regulators, practitioners, associations and academics regarding the most important priority solutions to the impact of Covid-19. However, experts agree that the highest priority solution is the SSN program in the lineage sector, specifically the distribution of the Family Hope Program. A program in the field of protecting the mind is the second priority solution. The program in the field of soul and wealth is the third priority solution. Originality/valueThis study contributes to the development of government policy to deal with the socioeconomic impact of Covid-19 based on the Islamic objectives by mapping the SSN through the five elements of protection, namely, faith, soul, mind, lineage and wealth protection based on priority solution.

Estimating Monthly Poverty Rates in the United States

Official poverty estimates for the United States are presented annually, based on a family unit's annual resources, and reported with a considerable lag. This study introduces a framework to produce monthly estimates of the Supplemental Poverty Measure and official poverty measure, based on a family unit's monthly income, and with a two-week lag. We argue that a shorter accounting period and more timely estimates of poverty better account for intra-year income volatility and better inform the public of current economic conditions. Our framework uses two versions of the Current Population Survey to estimate monthly poverty while accounting for changes in policy, demographic composition, and labor market characteristics. Validation tests demonstrate that our monthly poverty estimates closely align with observed trends in the Survey of Income & Program Participation from 2004 to 2016 and trends in hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic. We apply the framework to measure trends in monthly poverty from January 1994 through September 2021. Monthly poverty rates generally declined in the 1990s, increased throughout the 2000s, and declined after the Great Recession through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within-year variation in monthly poverty rates, however, has generally increased. Among families with children, within-year variation in monthly poverty rates is comparable to between-year variation, largely due to the average family with children receiving 37 percent of its annual income transfers in a single month through one-time tax credit payments. Moving forward, researchers can apply our framework to produce monthly poverty rates whenever more timely estimates are desired.

COVID-19 Social Safety Nets Sentiment Analysis on Twitter Using Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) Method

One of the Indonesian government's programs in dealing with Covid19 problems is the Social Safety Net program which is given to the community, especially Covid19 assistance which is given every month to the community. Based on the assistance provided by the government, many people expressed their opinions through Twitter social media. This study aims to analyze the sentiment on Twitter tweets regarding the Social Safety Net Program from March to December 2020. The data collected is 4061 tweets data. The data is classified into two classes, namely positive and negative. The classification algorithm used is Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU). Hyperparameter testing is carried out in order to produce an optimal model. In the optimal GRU hyperparameter, when there are 10 GRU units, the activation function is sigmoid, the optimizer used is Adam, the batch size is 128, with 10 epochs of iteration and 0.2 dropout size. The GRU model produces an f1score of 92.09%, a precision of 90.34%, and a recall of 93.90%. © 2021 IEEE.

An analysis of Indonesian government policies against COVID-19

Purpose - COVID-19 cases in Indonesia continue to increase and spread. This article aims to analyse the Indonesian government policies as a response in dealing with COVID-19. Design/methodology/approach - This article is a narrative analysis with the approach of a systematic literature review. Findings - This article found that the Indonesian government responded slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic at the beginning of its spread in March 2020. The government then issued some policies such as physical distancing, large-scale social restriction (PSBB - Pombalasan Sosial Berskala Besar) and social safety net. These policies will only work if the society follows them. The society could be the key to success of those policies, either as the support or the obstacles. Practical implications - This policy analysis with literature review, conducted from March to July 2020 in Indonesia, provides experiences and knowledge in how to respond to the dynamic problems of public policy in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, especially in the context of a developing country. Originality/value - The novelty of the article lies in the unique policy response in a diverse society. It suggests that the policymakers should pay more attention to the society's characteristics as well as the mitigation system as a preventive measure and risk management to make clear policy in the society.

Public support for U.S. social safety net policies throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has stretched the U.S. social safety net and prompted federal legislation designed to ameliorate the pandemic's health and economic impacts. We surveyed a nationally representative cohort of 1222 U.S. adults in April 2020 and November 2020 to evaluate changes in public opinion about 11 social safety net policies and the role of government over the course of the pandemic. A majority of U.S. adults supported six policies at both time points, including policies guaranteeing two weeks of paid sick leave; enacting universal health insurance; increasing the federal minimum wage; and increasing government spending on construction projects, business tax credits, and employment education and training. From April to November 2020, public support was stable for nine of the 11 policies but declined nearly 10 percentage points for policies guaranteeing two weeks paid sick leave (from 76% support in April 2020 to 67% support in November 2020) and extending unemployment insurance benefits (51% to 42%). Declines in support for these two policies were concentrated among those with higher incomes, more education, in better health status, the employed, and those with health insurance. The share of respondents believing in a strong role of government also declined from 33% in April to 26% in November 2020 (p > 0.05). Despite these shifts, we observed consistent majority support for several policies enacted during the pandemic, including guaranteeing paid sick leave and business tax credits, as well as employment-related policies.

The health and economic burden of the coronavirus in sub-Saharan Africa.

The current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to overwhelm healthcare systems and to exert a negative influence on the global economy. Of particular concern is the impact of COVID-19 in low-income settings - especially in terms of their capacity to mitigate a surge in COVID-19 cases. Indeed, response measures currently in place to tackle the spread of COVID-19 in geographic regions predominantly consisting of low-income nations, such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), remain tenuous and will require context-appropriate interventions. Control measures to tackle COVID-19 in SSA should therefore be informed through lessons learned from past outbreaks and emergencies on the continent. These lessons will represent a key source of guidance for the strategic implementation and promotion of public health interventions to assist scale-up of COVID-19 case management, infection prevention and control. Importantly, as governments in SSA continue to combat the spread of COVID-19, there will be a need to expand the coverage of social safety net programs and fiscal policy responses to tackle the socio-economic and health impact of COVID-19.