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 C19 is undermining financial accountability, transparency and integrity; the secondary health impacts and appropriateness of C19 responses in low and middle-income countries; public support for combining tax transparency conditions with C19 bailouts; and the need for adaptive C19 governance responses.
Many of the core C19 themes continue to be covered this week, including: rising hunger during C19; increasing authoritarian tendencies, and the risk that emergency powers will not be removed post-C19; and the risks posed to peacebuilding if aid budgets decline.
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. See the end of this report for details on the method taken for this rapid summary. 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”)
(“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 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 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
