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While the COVID-19 pandemic has hit different countries with varying intensity, responding to the crisis has presented an unprecedented challenge to most governments. In this context, evaluations provide critical tools to support real time sharing of lessons on what is working, what is not, what could work and for whom. This paper draws lessons from evaluations that governments have carried out themselves of their COVID-19 responses. It provides a synthesis of the evidence from 67 such evaluations produced in OECD countries during the first 15 months of the pandemic. These first evaluations show that many governments came to similar conclusions, and allow us to identify important insights that can feed into ongoing policy responses to the crisis – as well as increase future resilience. ....
Fight against Covid a 'countrywide achievement,' Costa Rica says at commemoration - ticotimes.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ticotimes.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
IMF: What role do you see for the IMF in supporting the country’s policy and reform efforts? President Alvarado: The IMF plays a key role in three areas: technical support to the program’s design, implementation and follow up; the credibility it brings to the process and to the macroeconomic policy program at the national and international level; and access to cheaper financing by mobilizing resources from other official creditors and supporting market confidence. The COVID-19 shock was of such magnitude, not just on lives and livelihoods but also on the public finances, that fiscal consolidation is unfortunately inevitable. Having the IMF’s support helps us to smoothen this process and strengthen our public finances in a way that ultimately benefits all Costa Ricans. ....
Email In early March, the sunset lookouts in Monteverde, Costa Rica, were packed with tourists. This community of roughly 6,000 residents is an ecotourism hot spot, and by most accounts, 2020 was set to be a banner year. Now police tape wraps the newly installed wooden benches, and every attraction, including the famed Cloud Forest Biological Preserve, is shuttered. Restaurants are folding and accommodations, from backpacker hostels to homestays and Airbnbs, are empty. A silence has descended, cut only by birdsong. It’s both tranquil and ominous the sound of indefinite absence. Santa Elena, the village serving the area around Monteverde, normally hums with visitors hopping from backpacker hostels to restaurants and attractions, such as the Serpentario snake zoo (right). Now the streets are empty.Photograph by Mauricio Valverde Arce ....
More than 7% of Costa Rica’s microenterprises closed in 2020, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC). The number of microenterprises Costa Rica’s smallest businesses, as defined by a formula that takes into account annual revenue and the amount of people employed dropped to 367,911 in 2020. This represents a decrease of 28,885 microenterprises compared to 2019, or -7.3%, per INEC’s annual survey on the topic. INEC says the Covid-19 pandemic provoked the creation of about 22,500 new business, the majority “out of necessity” because the individuals lost their previous job, couldn’t find salaried employment, or needed additional household income. ....