The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the global inadequacy of social-protection floors in safeguarding marginalized communities, in the process exacerbating poverty and vulnerability. The social-development case studies in this issue of SAMUDRA Report (pp 63-93) clearly demonstrate how the small-scale fishing communities in Asia, the Caribbean and Central America took a major hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. The articles show how they slipped unprecedently below the poverty line not only due to poor access to fishing grounds, landing sites and markets, lack of income and alternative livelihoods, but also due to lack of social-development infrastructure and access, and gross inadequacy of social-protection measures. The COVID-19 social-distancing protocols also prevented the fishing subsector from acting as an employer of last resort, as had been the case during economic slowdowns and droughts in the past.