This weekly Covid-19, Conflict, and Governance Evidence Summary aims to signpost the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) 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 to address C19 health risks during elections in Nigeria; the effects of a Universal Basic Income during C19 in rural Kenya; and the need to engage youth and youth groups in C19 responses to build back better and address intergeneration inequalities.
Many of the core C19 themes continue to be covered this week, including: the roles of non-government organisations in C19 responses; C19-related corruption, particularly involving state graft cases and medical procurement; and the unequal impacts of C19 on specific groups: children and sexual violence, attacks on health and aid workers; and border issues with migrants and displaced people.
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 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”) 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”)
Plus 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”)
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 Dwi Rachmawati for research assistance support, and Professor Heather Marquette for expert advice.
