This weekly Covid-19, Conflict, and Governance Evidence Summary aim 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 how policy responses to the C19 pandemic should differ in the Developing World; the state of the Asia-Pacific economy in the wake of C19, and the effect of the pandemic on global armed conflict.
Many of the core C19 themes continue to be covered this week, including leadership; authoritarianism versus democracy, and the effect of the C19 on conflict. 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. 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 separate searches of
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”)
(“COVID-19” OR “coronavirus”) AND (“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”)
Plus separate searches of Google Scholar with the keywords:
(“COVID-19” OR “coronavirus”) AND (“developing countries” OR “Africa” OR “Asia” OR “Middle East”
OR “Latin America” OR “Pacific”)
(“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”)
(“COVID-19” OR “coronavirus”) AND (“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 a 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.
