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COVID-19, Crises and Fragility

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Fragile contexts are beginning to be hitby the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of these countries are insufficiently prepared to cope with the spread of the disease and its consequences across the multiple dimensions of fragility. The most vulnerable have difficulty inaccessing hospitals and rely on poor public services. Confinement measures are hardly applicable and the mobilisation of security actors to enforce them creates further risks. The crisis highlights social inequalities and governance issues in many contexts….

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COVID-19 responses in Africa: Ok, one size doesn’t fit all. Now what?

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This article argues that the key issue with the COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa is not, as they would have it, that the population is young and that there are therefore not that many susceptible people. That is, in any case, a highly dubious assumption. With high rates of TB, untreated HIV, diabetes, hypertension and malnourishment in many parts of the continent, it may be the case that large numbers of younger people are exposed…

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Ensuring Integrity in Governments’Response to COVID-19

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Governments around the world are designing and implementing rapid responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this effort, they are faced with three extraordinary challenges: (1) a public health emergency to contain the virus including identifying and treating infected populations; (2) widespread food and livelihood insecurity due to mandated stoppage of economic activity and the resulting disruption of food supplies; and (3) adoption of emergency powers to address the crises and maintain public safety. Corruption risks,…

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Are local and international aid worker disparities worsening under COVID-19?

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This article addresses the distinction drawn between the employees who arrive mostly from Western countries, often for time-limited assignments and are called “expats” or “international” staff, and their “local” counterparts, drawn from the country where the response is taking place, and specifically looks at different treatment these employees receive in response to COVID-19.   Read more

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Supporting Continued Access to Education during COVID-19 – Emerging Promising Practices

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This document is the first in a series that highlights emerging practices as UNHCR operations and their partners work to support continued education for displaced and refugee students during the pandemic. Download Issue 1

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Preventing violent extremism during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

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While the world’s attention appropriately focuses on the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, the threat of violent extremism remains, and has in some circumstances been exacerbated during the crisis. The moment demands new and renewed attention so that the gains made to date do not face setbacks. As with so much reporting on and analysis of the pandemic, however, there is a shortage of data and evidence to support the headlines. The Global Community…

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The Covid-19 Response in Africa

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This blog post by the British Foreign Policy Group argues that the African continent’s healthcare systems and responses are coping better than expected, and that it is instead in the economic and social domain that Covid-19 will have its most damaging and lasting effects. In recovering from a crisis of this magnitude, African and  more developed nations alike will require strong state intervention to recover. They therefore ask the UK government to prioritise support in…

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COVID-19: South Sudan rumor tracking overview – Issue #1

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The Communication and Community Engagement Working Group (CCEWG) is expanding on existing efforts by other humanitarians around rumor tracking and seeks to improve data quality on perceptions and rumor monitoring by systematically tracking COVID-19 perceptions and rumors. This effort is key to understanding how South Sudanese communities perceive the virus—acting as a “check” on the humanitarian response—as well as providing a platform to capture their questions, suggestions and capacities. Building a nuanced understanding of how…

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African elections and COVID-19: A crisis of legitimacy

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In this article, the author argues that this public health emergency could be dwarfed by a deep crisis, which is a story about constitutional politics, which begins with elections, but is really about how African governments derive their legitimacy and what they do with power. He argues that the combination of a pandemic and emergencies is lethal to both campaigning and competitive politics and that in some countries, these measures threaten to run out the…

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The Impact of Sanctions on Humanitarian Response to COVID-19

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As COVID-19 begins to spread to the most fragile regions of the world, humanitarian organizations are facing pre-existing hurdles—often diffuse and indirect—hindering the deployment of an appropriate and timely response to the virus in countries under sanctions. Sanctioned jurisdictions represent around 75% of the beneficiary states of the United Nations (UN) Global Humanitarian Response Plan to COVID-19. With urgency growing by the day, what can the UN system, particularly the UN Security Council, do to…

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