This weekly Covid-19 Conflict and Governance Evidence Summary aims to signpost DFID and other UK government departments to the latest evidence and opinions on Covid-19 (C19), to inform and support their responses.
This week features resources on why we need ‘leader-centred’ analysis to understand how individual leaders’ choices have shaped the effectiveness of C19 responses (with significant impacts); how C19 is negatively affecting justice for women and safe abortion services; and how C19 is impacting on violent extremist recruitment and radicalisation and human trafficking.
Many of the core C19 themes continue to be covered this week, including how C19 is accentuating Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, allegations of C19 related corruption; how women are on the frontline of C19 responses (including as leaders); and the increased geopolitical tensions between the US and China. After a week of race riots and violent state responses in the US, more generalised concerns around US leadership and governance are palpable.
The summary uses two main sections – (1) literature: – this includes policy papers, academic articles, and long-form articles that go deeper than the typical blog; and (2) blogs & news articles. The articles in section (1) that are journal articles, or that explicitly state having been peer-reviewed, are highlighted in yellow (none again this week). It is the result of one day of work, and is thus indicative but not comprehensive of all issues or publications.
Methodology
Due to the emerging nature of the Covid-19 crisis, this rapid weekly summary includes blogs, and news articles, in addition to policy and academic literature. The sources included are found through searches of Google Scholar, Google, and ReliefWeb with the keywords:
(“COVID-19” OR “coronavirus”) AND (“developing countries” OR “Africa” OR “Asia” OR “Middle East” OR “Latin America” OR “Pacific”) AND (“conflict” OR “peace” OR “violence” OR “resilience” OR “fragility”) OR (“authoritarian*” OR “democra*” OR “corrupt*” OR “transparency” OR “state legitimacy” OR “non-state actors” OR “state capacity” OR “state authority” OR “politic*” OR “state institutions”)
The searches are restricted to articles published in the previous seven days, in English. This is complemented by: a focussed Twitter search (using just the pages of a small selection of research organisations, and key scholars/thinkers, including those funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID)); and through email recommendations from DFID advisors and leading experts. This is trial and error approach, which will be refined and changed over the coming weeks. If you have literature to include in the weekly summary, please email – s.herbert@bham.ac.uk
Thanks to Priscilla Baafi for research assistance support, and Professor Heather Marquette for expert advice.