When Returning to Normal Doesn’t Work for Half the World’s Population: How to Build Back Better

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The time immediately following a crisis, whether it be a peace process, rebuilding after a natural disaster or seeing a new government come into power, creates a window of opportunity to reimagine what the next phase of life can look like. When the status quo has been upended, there is a feeling that “normal” can be redesigned. With COVID-19, this opportunity seems more pressing than ever before as the pandemic has highlighted the inequalities that…

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Recovering better: economic and social challenges and opportunities

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The United Nations High-level Advisory Board (HLAB) on Economic and Social Affairs was established in June 2018 to help strengthen United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) in the context of the United Nations development system reform and as a key part of efforts to enhance the United Nations’s support to Member States in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Board also, through its twice annual meetings, provided advice to…

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MHPSS considerations in burial practices and responses to grief and loss during COVID-19

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Adapting Common Funeral Practices in South Sudan Communities During COVID-19

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COVID-19 as a global challenge: towards an inclusive and sustainable future

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COVID-19 is a global challenge that demands researchers, policy makers, and governments address multiple dimensions which go far beyond the implications of this pandemic for health and wellbeing. Just as the UN Sustainable Development Goals call for focus on the connections between development policy sectors, the pandemic has exposed the complex global interdependencies that underpin economies and highlighted fault lines in societal structures that perpetuate ethnic, economic, social, and gender inequalities. Here, the authors highlight…

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The Emerging Lessons on Urban Vulnerability and Safety from Covid-19 in Low-and Middle-Income Countries

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This discussion paper sets forth the lessons on urban vulnerability and safety, relevant to the security sector, emerging from coronavirus (Covid-19) and its related socioeconomic impacts on urban societies in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). The paper is structured as four sections: section one describes in brief the direct and indirect impacts of Covid-19. Section two describes the impacts of Covid-19on the incidence of crime, violence,and insecurity. Section three summarises the emerging lessons for the security…

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Skin in the Game: A Radical Rethink of Conflict Resolution

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Civil war is on the rise, as is the targeting of civilian populations and the use of authoritarian conflict management strategies. It is time for a radical rethink of conventional approaches to conflict resolution.   Read more

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The experience of the elderly during COVID-19 in South Sudan: Considerations for a conflict sensitive approach

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This blog reflects on COVID-19 related risks that elderly people face in South Sudan and provides recommendations on how to protect them in more conflict sensitive ways. Unlike many Western countries, where some elderly people reside in care homes or on their own, in South Sudan older people usually live within their family households. As such they are looked after by their children, usually their sons and daughters-in-law, and sometimes daughters. Being with the family…

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Immediate and longer-term impacts of Covid-19 on geopolitics in East Africa

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This K4D helpdesk report addresses the question of “What is the evidence telling us about the immediate and medium/longer-term impacts of C19 on geopolitics within the region and for relationships between states in East Africa?” This rapid literature review finds that the medium-to long-term effects of Covid-19 on geopolitics in East Africa are unknown. In the immediate term, the pandemic is likely to put stress on economies and healthcare systems, and thereby have the potential…

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Learning from Exemplars in Global Health: a road map for mitigating indirect effects of COVID-19 on maternal and child health

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The combination of four forces—constrained supply, reduced resources, suppressed demand and worsening socioeco-nomic inequality—creates a likelihood that the indirect effects on health and nutrition will be more harmful than the direct health consequences of the disease. Projections already suggest that COVID-19 could lead to up to a 45% increase in child deaths and a 39% increase in maternal deaths across low and middle-income countries. Such a back-slide would undermine dramatic gains made since 2000. Under-five…

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