Introduction

Introduction

The COVID-19 outbreak has had unprecedented negative socioeconomic effects on the lives of millions of people across the world, particularly among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.1 Tunisia has had to endure the human and economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the difficulties brought on by containment measures and restrictions to mobility. The first cases of COVID-19 in Tunisia were reported on March 2, 2020, and as of January 13, 2021, a total of about 165,000 cases and over 5,300 deaths have been recorded by Tunisian authorities. Following the pattern seen in other countries, the virus’s spread slowed between May and July 2020, but cases rose again in the autumn, with peaks in October and November.

The public health emergency during the height of the pandemic and the introduction of lockdown measures led to a 10 percent contraction of the Tunisian economy in the first nine months of 2020, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS). The World Bank (2020c) projects that the country’s economy will contract by 9.2 percent in 2020.2 The pandemic, the containment measures, and restrictions to mobility have led to (a) steep job losses and drops in incomes, (b) price increases, (c) decline in other income sources, and (d) disruption in the delivery of health and education services.

A serious concern is that the combined health and socioeconomic crisis of 2020 could reverse some of the progress Tunisia has made in reducing poverty and raising living standards, with an increase in the vulnerable population falling into poverty. Before COVID-19, the poverty headcount rate in Tunisia declined from 25.4 percent in 2000 to 13.8 percent in 2019, with the pace of poverty reduction fastest between 2010 and 2015. A thorough examination of trends in inequality shows a similar pattern. Particularly from 2005 onward, the Gini index fell from 0.40 in 2000 to 0.37 in 2015, and further to 0.33 in 2019.

However, monitoring the socioeconomic impact of the crisis has been challenging in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, several national statistical offices have resorted to high-frequency telephone surveys to replace the in-person surveys that would normally be done. Between March and October 2020, the INS, in collaboration with the World Bank, launched five rounds of these surveys to assess the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a nationally representative panel of about 1,000 households. These results have been initially published on the INS website.3

In addition, there has been a flurry of studies and research papers that simulate the economic impacts of the COVID-19 shock on poverty and welfare.4 Cross-country research on the effects on the labor market shows that the magnitude of the impact of the COVID-19 shock