Evaluation of Belgium’s COVID-19 Responses

Executive summary

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic posed an unprecedent challenge to countries across the OECD, not least because it required concerted action from all parts of government and sectors of society. Belgium’s federal and federated governments adopted a wide range of measures and worked together to mitigate the consequences of the crisis on citizens’ lives and livelihoods. This report, which is part of the OECD’s work on evaluating government responses to the COVID-19 crisis, seeks to understand which measures worked and which did not, for whom and why, to draw shared lessons from this experience and, ultimately, strengthen trust for a more resilient society.

Factors affecting Belgium’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

To evaluate the measures adopted by Belgium to tackle the pandemic, their implementation and results, it is important to understand the structural factors that could affect the country’s performance. The highly decentralised nature of Belgium’s public governance system and the low levels of trust in public institutions in the country required demonstrating strong leadership to co-ordinate, implement and ensure social acceptance of unprecedented measures. Belgium was able to rely on a longstanding culture of co-ordination across public entities and of compromise to implement a whole-of-government response to the crisis. In the health field, the fact that the Belgian population is relatively healthy and young compared to the European Union average, proved an advantage in the face of the pandemic. On the other side, persistent geographic and social inequalities created challenges in ensuring that the educational and social policies put in place during the pandemic left no one behind.

Emergency anticipation and preparedness in Belgium

A number of weaknesses in risk anticipation and pandemic preparedness complicated Belgium’s early response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the national risk assessment recognised the risk posed by pandemics, not enough was done to foster a shared understanding of the risk across government levels and sectors. Consequently, planning and preparedness for large-scale pandemics were mainly confined to the health sector. Early actions were taken, but cross-government crisis management structures were not mobilised from the start of the pandemic. To improve readiness, Belgium should strengthen shared situational awareness and a common understanding of risks, as well as embed a culture of preparedness across government.

The management of the COVID-19 crisis

Managing a complex multidisciplinary crisis calls for a whole-of-government and whole-of-society response, maintaining trust in public action and preserving democratic continuity, especially for enduring crises. In Belgium, the governance of the COVID-19 crisis suffered at an early stage from a multiplicity of actors involved, but, over time, adapted to the evolving crisis involved federated entities more closely in decision-making at the centre. Crisis communication was, overall, coherent throughout the crisis, although vulnerable groups could have been better targeted. All in all, Belgium made efforts to shape a whole-of-society response and took care to preserve democratic accountability. Still, greater diversity in scientific advice and the involvement of civil society in crisis management bodies could have made the response more effective. In the future, Belgium will need to reinforce its overall national crisis management system to be better prepared to tackle complex shocks and should invest in promoting trust in public institutions to increase its resilience.

The resilience of the health system to COVID-19

While Belgium encountered challenges in responding to the initial waves of the pandemic, it managed to significantly improve its health response in 2021 and 2022. In particular, Belgium quickly scaled up and monitored hospital capacity, as well as deployed a successful vaccination campaign. Still, older populations, especially those in long-term care facilities, were particularly hard hit. The pandemic also exerted a heavy toll on mental health, especially for young and vulnerable populations, even though Belgium did expand support for mental health services as a response. To best prepare for potential upcoming health crises, Belgium should strengthen co-ordination mechanisms between health actors at the local level, continue to invest in strengthening the health workforce, as well as monitor and address the longer-term effects of the pandemic on the population.

The education system during the pandemic

In Belgium, the education systems sought to ensure educational continuity throughout the pandemic. During the acute phase of the crisis, communities focused on learning essentials and digital tools. Later on in the crisis, education authorities faced challenges in implementing health protocols, but all sought to keep schools open. This resulted in Belgium being one of the European countries with the fewest number of school closure days. The increased collaboration and co-ordination between language communities helped achieve this result, but nationwide gaps remain in monitoring the impact assessment of schooling disruptions on learning outcomes. Going forward, ensuring schools remain open as much as possible in times of crisis, increasing digital access and capacity of all stakeholders involved, and further strengthening collaboration between authorities will be crucial to maintaining educational continuity.

Emergency economic and fiscal measures

Similarly to other OECD Member countries, the Belgian economy was severely impacted by the pandemic. Contact professions and service-oriented sectors were particularly affected. The federal government rapidly issued support, relying partly on existing delivery mechanisms such as temporary unemployment. Regional governments rapidly designed and implemented direct support, emergency loans and guarantee schemes, with some differences across regions. The assessment of firms’ difficulties and needs through surveys during the crisis helped policymakers adapt and develop the measures. The economic response relied mostly on measures with a direct impact on public spending and less on liquidity measures. Overall, most support did go to businesses that were hit the hardest during the pandemic. In the future, Belgium should prioritise the take-up of loans and guarantees and improve co-ordination of business support measures. A key priority should be to further develop data collection and sharing to better design, target and evaluate economic measures.

Protecting jobs and incomes during the crisis

Belgium was able to build on pre-existing institutional structures to protect livelihoods during the COVID-19 crisis. Like many other OECD countries, Belgium made heavy use of its job retention scheme, rapidly expanding access to temporary unemployment benefits. The labour market shock was consequently mostly absorbed by working-time reductions, while unemployment rose only slightly. A second pillar of Belgium’s crisis response were extensions of the bridging right scheme, a unique income support programme for self-employed workers. Unemployment and social assistance benefits were extended only slightly. Income inequality and poverty declined in 2020, and the labour market recovered swiftly as economic activity resumed. Coverage gaps likely existed for workers on very short contracts, including young workers. In the event of a future crisis, Belgium may want to consider adjusting the eligibility requirements of temporary unemployment to changing labour market conditions, better targeting bridging right payments, and providing stronger support to the most vulnerable.