Disrupt & Innovate

This page is part of a series of COVID-19 resource pages that we are creating to help civil society actors.

Click here to view all available pages.

Click here for our latest events news.

On this page, you will find links to readings, podcasts and videos related to the latest COVID-19 news and analysis. If you have a recommendation or a suggestion, let us know. Many thanks to our volunteer researcher Ineke Stemmet.

The sections are:

Staying up-to-date: Links to sites that will keep you abreast of important developments related to our sector and the latest news.

Strategic: We look at the impact and responses to COVID-19 in a general and intersectional way (i.e. impacts on human rights, climate change, etc).

Policy: Civil society’s policies that respond to challenges posed by COVID-19.

Operational: A list of what your organisation can do now to navigate these unprecedented times.

1. Staying up-to-Date

• Cancelled, postponed, virtual: COVID-19’s impact on human rights oversight (Open Global Rights)
  The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for nonprofits’ services while damaging their finances and staff. What can history tell us about surviving this crisis, and how can philanthropy help?  
• Combatting COVID-19 disinformation on online platforms (OECD)
  Disinformation and misinformation about COVID-19 are quickly and widely disseminated across the Internet, reaching and potentially influencing many people. This policy brief derives four key actions that governments and platforms can take to counter COVID-19 disinformation on platforms, namely: 1) supporting a multiplicity of independent fact-checking organisations; 2) ensuring human moderators are in place to complement technological solutions; 3) voluntarily issuing transparency reports about COVID-19 disinformation; and 4) improving users’ media, digital and health literacy skills.
• COVID-19 Aftershocks: A Perfect Storm (World Vision International)
  This report looks at the impacts of COVID-19 relating to violence on girls and boys. We predict a major spike in the cases of children experiencing physical, emotional and sexual violence, both now and in the months and years to come. Up to 85 million more girls and boys worldwide may be exposed to physical, sexual and/or emotional violence over three months as a result of COVID-19 quarantine.
• COVID-19 Aftershocks: Out of time (World Vision International)
  Millions of parents and caregivers have lost incomes and jobs due to COVID-19, forcing them to expose their children to harmful and dangerous circumstances, such as begging or child marriage. World Vision has conducted rapid assessments in 24 countries across Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia confirming alarming predictions of increased child hunger, violence, and poverty due to the economic impact of COVID-19
• COVID-19 Aftershocks: Secondary impacts threaten more children’s lives than disease itself (World Vision International)
  As many as 30 million children are at risk of disease and death because of the secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. World Vision’s Aftershocks report considers what would happen if the devastating secondary impacts of the 2015-2016 Ebola outbreak on children were replicated in the 24 most fragile countries covered by the UN’s COVID-19 humanitarian appeal.
• Embracing Innovation in Government: Global Trends 2020 (OECD)
  New report summarising innovative responses by governments to the COVID-19 crisis, drawing upon the over 400 cases and initiatives, under five key themes: Theme 1: Rapid acceleration of digital innovation and transformation, Theme 2: Seeking bottom-up solutions and insights, Theme 3: Social solidarity and caring, Theme 4: Reducing the spread through virus tracking and adaptive action, and Theme 5: Forging a path to recovery.
  
• Fighting COVID-19, Building Peace – a civil society perspective. What Local Peacebuilders Say about COVID-19, Civic Space, Fragility and Drivers of Conflict (Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS))
  This report provides a comprehensive outlook on the lived experiences of local peacebuilders as they face down COVID-19 and its consequences. It explores how the pandemic has affected civil society’s capacity to operate, how local peacebuilders view the pandemic as occasioning violence and stimulating drivers of conflict, and the dearth of coordination between government and civil society.
• Is the explosion of COVID-19 conspiracies changing people’s real-world behavior? (Fast Company)
  More than 20 million people saw a video filled with lies about COVID-19. Researchers still don’t know how this kind of viral misinformation is impacting people’s willingness to wear masks—or to get an eventual vaccine.
• ODI Bites: Africa beyond Covid-19 (ODI)
  Early signs from Africa are that in many countries, the response to Covid-19 has been effective. But contrary to commonplace narratives about aiding Africa, recent events highlight opportunities for Europe and elsewhere to learn from Africa.
  
• Sensemaking possibilities #2: tools and analyses to support local and global sensemaking (OECD)
  What are some of the different narratives and perspectives emerging from or, or prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated crises? How do we explore them and make sense of them?
• The Current and Potential Impact of COVID-19 on Nonprofits (SSIR)
  The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand for nonprofits’ services while damaging their finances and staff. What can history tell us about surviving this crisis, and how can philanthropy help?
• Updated forecasts quantify the impact of COVID-19 on Africa (Institute of Security Studies (ISS))
  Compared to pre-COVID-19 projections, Africa’s economy will be between US$349 billion and US$643 billion smaller in 2030. As such, beyond being a health pandemic, COVID-19 is set to create a generational set-back for development in Africa.
• Urban Thinkers Campus – COVID-19 & the role of youth in cities (Webinar) (World Vision International and Plan International)
  This webinar included youth representatives from Bangladesh, Brazil and Peru and from organizations working with this population segment on how they are involved in prevention, response and recovery efforts to address COVID-19 while contributing to long term outcomes contributing to more liveable cities. Password: $C=Nr89H
• Why African countries are reluctant to take up COVID-19 debt relief (The Conversation)
  African countries should tread carefully over the debt relief offered by multilateral institutions and other lenders. It could prove very costly in the medium to long term.
  

2. Strategic

Biodiversity and Climate Change

• What does COVID tell us about responding to the Climate Crisis? (From Poverty to Power (FP2P))
  A humanitarian thinker reflects on the lessons from the COVID response for how governments and the humanitarian systems tackle the climate crisis. 

Civic Space and Human Rights

• COVID-19 has opened the floodgates for smart cities—whether we like it or not (Fast Company)
  The conditions created by the pandemic will make it easier for local governments to adopt technological solutions.
  
• Putting cities at the centre of the post-pandemic world (C40 Cities)
  Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires, highlights why both the global health and the global climate crises have galvanized cities’ central roles as global actors.
  
• Priorities for mayors for a green post-COVID recovery: global perspective (C40 Cities Knowledge Hub)
  This collection of articles is intended to give a global outlook and shape regionally-appropriate responses for accelerating a green recovery in cities. Whilst there are regional nuances and differences, all experts agree that the response to the climate crisis and this global pandemic must be inextricably linked.
• Migrant smugglers are profiting from travel restrictions (Institute for Security Studies (ISS))
  Across the world, over 60 000 mobility restrictions to contain COVID-19 have been imposed. Travel constraints, border closures and reduced travel modes severely disrupted smuggling markets. After an initial slowdown though, smugglers are reviving and adapting to meet changing needs.
  
• The Dangers Ahead: COVID-19, Authoritarianism and Democracy (LSE)
  LSE article on trend towards authoritarianism and related threats and potential responses. It describes the broader political context CSOs are working in and provides some suggestions for how to counter some negative threats trends Four threats: ‘Deglobalisation’ takes a nationalist form, less democratic participation, more centralisation, surveillance state and erosion of human rights, inequality goes unchallenged.

Data and Digital

• Our post-COVID future should be as much about welfare as it is about tech (Open Global Rights)
  Surveillance thrives in unequal environments, and the pandemic has increased inequality. We need a welfare state for our digital information economy.
• How COVID-19 exposed AI’s limitations (Nesta)
  As COVID-19 spread, a multitude of AI models were put to work in a bid to tackle it. The results to date have been largely disappointing. Instead, the unlikely hero emerging from the ashes of this pandemic is the crowd. Crowds of scientists sharing data, of local makers manufacturing PPE and of people organising through mutual aid groups.
  

Futures

• Making Strategic Decisions in the Context of COVID-19 (SSIR (Stanford Social Innovation Review))
  The long-term impact that the COVID-19 pandemic will have on society is still uncertain, but the tools of scenario planning can help social sector leaders better prepare their organizations for the different, possible futures that may unfold.
• Scenarios to Navigate the COVID-19 Pandemic and its Possible Futures (1) (The Red (Team) Analysis Society)
  This article presents nested scenarios – and linked narratives – to handle the uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its aim is to provide an organised framework to foresee the future of our world as it lives through the pandemic, while easing understanding.
  
• A post-pandemic world: well-being for all or deepening inequality? (Open Global Rights)
  Putting fear aside as we emerge from this pandemic will allow space for what we value most in people: empathy, solidarity and mutual support.
  
• 7 predictions for the new normal post-pandemic (In The Black)
  As a society, we have a unique opportunity to re-evaluate how we live and work. There has been a cultural shift that brings into focus new priorities and emphasises the need for adaptability. Futurists believe that our “next normal” will prioritise collective benefit, collaboration and empathetic leadership.
  
• Our COVID Future: The Long Crisis Scenarios(Long Crisis Network)
  Scenarios of how the response to COVID-19 could shape the conflict dynamics of the Middle East: some portend the pernicious effects of the virus moving the region even further away from integration and closer toward acute insecurity, but some also see a transition to greater stability, or even the prospect of a “wake-up” moment where leaders move toward a “resilience regional architecture.”
• Middle East Conflict and COVID-19 A view from 2025 (Middle East Institute)
  Scenarios of how the response to COVID-19 could shape the conflict dynamics of the Middle East: some portend the pernicious effects of the virus moving the region even further away from integration and closer toward acute insecurity, but some also see transition to greater stability, or even the prospect of a “wake-up” moment where leaders move toward a “resilience regional architecture.”
  
• Strategic foresight for the COVID-19 crisis and beyond: Using futures thinking to design better public policies (OECD)
  This resource supports the use of foresight in post-COVID 19 policy-making, presenting key uncertainties and possible future developments with short- and medium-term policy implications, a preliminary guide for using these elements, and selected foresight pieces.
  

Gender Equality

• COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects (McKinsey & Company)
  What is good for gender equality is good for the economy and society as well. The COVID-19 pandemic puts that truth into stark relief and raises critically important questions.
  

Multilateralism and international cooperation

• Protection Requires Co-operation to Combat Covid-19 (Human Rights Watch)
  Cooperation between nations is needed to protect not only people’s health during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to tackle issues such as climate change and the use of technology.

Pandemic Specific Consequences and Responses (economic, health & social impacts)

• Pandemic profiteers exposed (Oxfam)
  In Pandemic Profiteers Exposed, Oxfam found that 17 of the top 25 most profitable US corporations, including Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Facebook, Pfizer, and Visa, are expected to make almost $85 billion more in 2020 than in previous years. Oxfam is calling for a resurrection of the WWII-era excess profits tax to limit pandemic price-gouging, level the playing field between companies, and raise much needed funds for COVID relief and recovery, such as providing ongoing COVID-19 testing and vaccines for every person on the planet.
  
• Divided we stand: the EU’s domestic- and foreign-policy agenda  (International Institute for Strategic Studies )
  Europe was already facing a host of complex geopolitical and economic challenges at the start of 2020, even before the COVID-19 crisis. In this week’s episode, Meia is joined by Sarah Raine and Fabrice Pothier for a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion on how the EU’s political agenda has been impacted by the pandemic and what issues remain at the forefront of its policy priorities.
  

3. Policy

• Almost 10 Million Children May Never Return to School Following COVID-19 Lockdown (Save the Children)
  Deep budget cuts to education and rising poverty caused by COVID-19 could force at least 9.7 million children out of school forever by the end of this year, with millions more falling behind in learning, especially girls. As the impacts of the recession triggered by COVID-19 hits families, many children may be forced out of school and into labor markets.

Thomas Howie

Communications Manager

International Civil Society Centre

This page is part of a series of COVID-19 resource pages that we are creating to help civil society actors.

Click here to view all available pages.

Click here for our latest events news.

On this page, you will find links to readings, podcasts and videos related to the latest COVID-19 news and analysis. If you have a recommendation or a suggestion, let us know. Many thanks to our volunteer researcher Ineke Stemmet.

The sections are:

Staying up-to-date: Links to sites that will keep you abreast of important developments related to our sector and the latest news.

Strategic: We look at the impact and responses to COVID-19 in a general and intersectional way (i.e. impacts on human rights, climate change, etc).

Policy: Civil society’s policies that respond to challenges posed by COVID-19.

Operational: A list of what your organisation can do now to navigate these unprecedented times.

1. Staying up-to-Date

• COVID-19 Civic Freedom Tracker (ICNL/ECNL)
  This tracker monitors government responses to the pandemic that affect civic freedoms and human rights, focusing on emergency laws.
• Cultural factors are behind disinformation pandemic: why this matters (The Conversation)
  In Africa, people who report higher levels of exposure to disinformation also report lower levels of media trust. The most common reasons for people to share misinformation was to raise awareness out of a (misplaced) sense of civic duty, and make others aware of misinformation. Media users in sub-Saharan countries also said they shared misinformation “for fun”.
• Effective Activism in a Time of Coronavirus: what are we learning six months in? (From Poverty to Power + Save the Children)
  Activism is unlikely to be what speeds our exit from the crisis, but it is the single biggest determinant of whether that exit is equitable. This moment demands our best ever work and we won’t do it without plans to deal with the biggest strategic challenges in front of us – Save the Children’s Kirsty McNeil lists four to start with.
• EU launches another tool on pandemic’s threat to human rights (Devex)
  The EC is launching a new platform to monitor the consequences for democracy and human rights, prepared by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance — or International IDEA. It is intended as a one-stop shop to allow policymakers, journalists, civil society groups, and the public to track the impact of the pandemic.
• How have Africa’s regions fared in tackling COVID-19? (Institute of Security Studies)
  Regional responses to the pandemic are essential, and although regions acted quickly, results have been mixed.
• Locally Rooted: The place of community organising in times of crisis (Community Organisers UK)
  It is widely acknowledged that neighbours have played an essential role in supporting their local communities through the COVID-19 crisis. Often this support has bubbled up spontaneously from below. UK-focused blog and report.
• The COVID Inequality Ratchet: how the pandemic has hit the lives of young, women, minority and poor workers the hardest (From Poverty to Power)
  Oxfam blog on what we know about the unequal impact of COVID-19 on workers and pre-existing inequalities in labour markets, looking at data for high and lower/middle-income countries.
• The Wicked Conversation (Good Governance Africa)
  A blog series of current pan-African perspectives on the pandemic as a ‘wicked problem’, to explore ‘wicked solutions’ on: leadership, rule of law, work and jobs, public health measures, social support measures, and planning the future.

2. Strategic

Biodiversity and Climate Change

• Preventing the next pandemic: Zoonotic diseases and how to break the chain of transmission (United Nations Environment Programme)
  This scientific assessment with key messages for policy-makers examines the human-mediated factors which drive the risks of zoonotic disease outbreaks and ways in which these can be mitigated.

Civic Space and Human Rights

• Locally rooted: The place of community organising in times of crisis (Community Organisers)
  A report intended to show how people can organise together and build supportive, effectively serviced and more equitable communities.
• Pride is a timely reminder that LGBTI people must not be left out of COVID-19 response (Amnesty International )
  Last month’s Pride celebrations were a chance to celebrate and promote the rights of LGBTI people at a time when their rights are under increased threat. Amnesty International warned that existing inequalities have been entrenched by months of lockdown measures, exposing LGBTI people to terrifying levels of discrimination, stigma, hostility and violence.
  
• How to operationalise human rights for COVID-19 measures (BMJ Global Health)
  The human rights framework is complex and not readily accessible to anyone not specialised in human rights law. However, it is paramount that human rights are respected in the current situation. This article provides a basic how-to guide for the assessment and operationalisation of human rights for COVID-19 measures.
• Lockdowns vs. religious freedom: COVID-19 is a trust-building exercise (Open Global Rights)
  Governments must partner with faith leaders to battle COVID-19, creating an opportunity to build necessary trust and cooperation with wider parts of the population.
• Power in the Pandemic Breaking Borders, Refugees Imagining a Post-COVID World (Oxfam)
  This podcast cuts across borders and hands the mic to two refugee activists who discuss the impact COVID-19 has had on the communities they work with.

Data and Digital

• A Digital Lifeline in a Public Health Crisis (Stanford Social Innovation Review)
  Five lessons from BRAC in Bangladesh using a digital cash transfer programme to help poor families struggling with COVID-19.

Futures

• ‘Imagining a Post-COVID World – Strategic Futures’ (Six scenarios as 30-second videos) (Auxano Strategies, Nordic Foresight and the Global Arena Research Institute)
  Explore COVID-19 pandemic’s implications on the trans-Atlantic community, US-China relations, IPCC emission reduction targets, the gig economy and more. Six video-illustrated scenarios: (1) The Panic Normalised, (2) Taming Our Worst Impulses, (3) Too Little, Too Late, (4) No Return to Normal, (5) An Atomised World, (6) A Disaster Forgotten.
• After the Pandemic: Which Future?  (Great Transition Initiative)
  How will today’s crisis alter the shape of tomorrow’s world? Which scenario—Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, Great Transition—has become more likely? How can we seize the moment to propel transformation?
• Are you reframing your future or is the future reframing you?: Megatrends 2020 and beyond (EY)
  The COVID­-19 pandemic accelerated global megatrends, pushing the world onto a new S-curve of growth. This global reset created an opening for change that seemed unthinkable a few months ago, including the opportunity to shape the post-pandemic world for the better. EY Megatrends provide leaders with a framework for navigating this unprecedented change and charting future growth.
• COVID-19 crisis: possible scenarios for the next 18 months (Futuribles International)
  Thanks to its knowledge of rigorous forward-thinking methodologies, Futuribles International Association has set out 11 scenarios to forecast the possible evolutions of the crisis over the next 18 months (the targeted horizon being the end of 2021).

Gender Equality

• Women Face Rising Risk of Violence During Covid-19 Leave No Woman Behind in Governments’ Response (Human Rights Watch )
  Governments need to do more to monitor and intervene to prevent violence against women during COVID-19 lockdowns, Human Rights Watch said today in a report to the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women. The problem may be especially acute for women who face both discrimination and marginalisation.

Multilateralism and international cooperation

• African solidarity to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent (African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes )
  The African Union (AU), together with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, launched a public-private initiative known as the AU COVID-19 Response Fund. The intention of this initiative is to mobilise at least US$150 million for immediate needs to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, and up to US$400 million to support a sustainable medical response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is currently spreading across the continent.
• The Multilateral Order Post-COVID: Expert Voices (The Institute of International and European Affairs)
  The multilateral order since the Second World War was already showing strains before the world was afflicted with the pandemic. In this IIEA Expert Voices publication, ten foreign policy experts share short perspectives on the question of how COVID-19 pandemic will impact different aspects of the rules-based multilateral order.

Pandemic Specific Consequences and Responses (economic, health & social impacts)

• Beyond Lockdown⁠—Sustainable COVID Control for Low-Income Countries (Centre for Global Development)
  Countries need to be supported to deploy layered context-specific mitigation strategies after lockdown
• Can we avoid a lost decade of development? (Brookings Institution )
  Children have not borne the brunt of the immediate health threats posed by the coronavirus pandemic. But as the pandemic mutates into a global economic crisis, millions of children could be left carrying disadvantages that will limit opportunities for the rest of their lives. This article asks whether we can avoid the 2020s from becoming a lost decade for development.
• Economy Must Not Get Stuck Between Lockdown and Recovery (Chatham House )
  Despite recent outbreaks in several countries which had appeared to be close to excluding the virus, focusing on suppression and elimination is the best economic as well as a health strategy.
• How have Africa’s regions fared in tackling COVID-19? (Institute for Security Studies)
  African countries are increasingly trying to coordinate COVID-19 responses with those of their neighbours. This is done largely through regional economic communities and is a potentially important response to the pandemic. Yet their efforts have had mixed results.
• OECD’s Economic Outlook 2020: Facing The Jobs Crisis (OECD)
  COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on jobs has been 10 times bigger than that of the global financial crisis. Countries now need to do everything they can to stop this jobs crisis from turning into a social crisis. Reconstructing a better and more resilient labour market is an essential investment in the future and in future generations.
  

3. Policy

• Care in the Time of Coronavirus: Why care work needs to be at the centre of a post-COVID-19 feminist future (Oxfam GB)
  While COVID-19 and the related containment efforts have caused increases in women’s – and men’s – unpaid care workloads, women are still doing the bulk of this work. Care work is essential to the healthy functioning of our societies and economies and must be better supported through policy and social norms change.

4. Operational

• Reforms key to NGOs weathering Coronavirus financial crisis (Casey Kelso/Medium)
  The true internal change will be tested soon as NGOs face potential massive layoffs. Well-managed NGOs are more likely to survive, while those distrusted by staff and donors alike risk going under.

Robert Vysoudil

Communications Student Assistant

International Civil Society

This page is part of a series of COVID-19 resource pages that we are creating to help civil society actors.

Click here to view all available pages.

Click here for our latest events news.

On this page, you will find links to readings, podcasts and videos related to the latest COVID-19 news and analysis. If you have a recommendation or a suggestion, let us know.

The sections are:

Staying up-to-date: Links to sites that will keep you abreast of important developments related to our sector and the latest news.

Strategic: We look at the impact and responses to COVID-19 in a general and intersectional way (i.e. impacts on human rights, climate change, etc).

Policy: Civil society’s policies that respond to challenges posed by COVID-19.

Operational: A list of what your organisation can do now to navigate these unprecedented times.

    1. Staying up-to-Date

• A Better World Ahead Means Shaping Emerging Narratives Now (SSIR)
  The groups that set the narratives about what happened during the COVID-19 crisis, what to do now, and what’s next will have outsized influence on who we hold responsible, who gets help, and what we do moving forward.
• Adaptive Context Analysis during Covid-19 – Listening to Local Voices During a Pandemic (Global Policy – World Vision blog)
  With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic two key tenets for humanitarian aid that often go together, context analysis and travel, are now in tension. World Vision’s Johan Eldebo shows how they’ve sought to overcome it by balancing the necessity for remote management with the ongoing need for the locally informed analysis.
• Challenging the “‘White Gaze’ of Development” during COVID-19 (Podcast) (Oxford Society for International Development)
  Liberian academic, activist and author Robtel Neajai Pailey, uses race as a lens of analysis to interrogate assumptions that Western whiteness and modernity are the primary signifiers of progress and expertise. In exploring the pitfalls of adopting a “colour blind” outlook on development, it considers how scholars, policymakers and practitioners can challenge the ‘white gaze’ by imagining “a better world beyond flattened curves”.
• COVID-19: Human development on course to decline this year for the first time since 1990 (UNDP)
  The United Nations Development Program predicts a decline in global human development – education, health, and living standards – for the first time in 30 years.
• Embracing Innovation in Government Global Trends 2020: Innovative COVID-19 Solutions (OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation)
  OPSI has identified five key themes driving public sector innovation efforts during the crisis: 1. Rapid acceleration of digital innovation and transformation, 2. Seeking bottom-up solutions and insights, 3. Social solidarity and caring, 4. Reducing the spread through virus tracking and adaptive action, and 5. Forging a path to recovery.
• How are Civil Society Organizations adapting in the pandemic? (From Poverty to Power FP2P)
  Diverse stories on the roles of civil society and civic agency during the pandemic. While many actions focus on the basic and immediate needs that an emergency response requires, many others hint at gradual shifts and emerging areas of the agency.
• How the Coronavirus Tests European Democracy (Carnegie Endowment Europe)
  The Coronavirus pandemic is prompting contrasting trends in European democracy. While the crisis is aggravating many stresses that afflict democracy in Europe, it is also propelling democratic efforts in a number of areas. Several articles including: Coronavirus and European Civil Society, Technocracy and Populism After the Coronavirus, Digital Divides and the Coronavirus.
• Humanitarian Financing Is Failing the COVID-19 Frontlines  (Center for Global Development)
  Longstanding weaknesses in the humanitarian business model are undermining the COVID-19 response in fragile and conflict-affected states. Extensive delays, poor mechanisms for tracking disbursement of funds from intermediaries to implementers, and persistent obstacles to financing local actors are preventing funds from reaching organizations on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight.
• In many countries, the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating, not slowing (The Conversation)
  Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating. While some countries such as Australia and New Zealand have managed to flatten the curve, in many other parts of the world the number of cases has continued to reach new highs.
• Latin America sees the largest decline in peacefulness as COVID-19 poses a further threat (Devex)
  South America is the region of the world where peace deteriorated most last year, followed by Central America and the Caribbean, according to the “Global Peace Index 2020” report, with peacefulness expected to drop globally as a result of COVID-19.
• New UNESCO report shows COVID-19 leaving vulnerable children behind (Devex)
  The “2020 Global Education Monitoring Report” from UNESCO shows progress is slowing on the global out-of-school rate for primary and secondary school-age children, and COVID-19 will only make it worse.
• Sector boundaries are blurring, says CARE secretary-general (Devex)
  COVID-19 has “deeply transformed” the humanitarian and development sectors, potentially blurring the boundaries for good, according to the new secretary-general of CARE International.
• Sierra Leone faces coronavirus as rainy season hits – local disaster planning will be key (The Conversation)
  Overlapping disasters of COVID-19 and flooding could be a serious threat for Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown.
• The Global Economic Outlook During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Changed World (World Bank)
  The pandemic is expected to plunge most countries into recession in 2020, with per capita income contracting in the largest fraction of countries globally since 1870.
• The view from space: See how dramatically COVID-19 changed the world (Fast Company)
  A new dashboard from three space agencies shows the startling impact of the coronavirus pandemic on everything from air quality to asparagus farming.
• What kind of research should inform COVID responses? (From Poverty to Power FP2P)
  If we agree that evidence-informed policy and practice are good things, we need to think about what kind of research gets commissioned. We are fast reaching the end of the road for COVID expert opinion based on what was happening in last data rounds before COVID, and need to shift gears to investing in new data.
• When the West Falls Into Crisis (Webinar) (The New Humanitarian)
  An important conversation on rethinking humanitarianism in the midst of #BlackLivesMatter and COVID-19. The globalisation of vulnerability – made clear by the Coronavirus pandemic and a global anti-racism movement – is putting into question traditional conceptions of humanitarian aid, too. Will this historic moment force a rethink of international solidarity? Is the international nature of aid inherently problematic? TNH Director Heba Aly posed these questions to panellists from across the aid sector.
• World Bank has ‘stretched’ its capacity in coronavirus response, Malpass says (Devex)
  The World Bank has reached the limit of support it can provide to low- and middle-income countries recovering from the pandemic, even while acknowledging those nations require more resources than are currently available, the institution’s president says.

    2. Strategic

Biodiversity and Climate Change

• Climate change makes COVID-19 politics look easy (Lowy Institute)
  The coronavirus pandemic has led to all kinds of novel political calculations. Climate change needs even better ones.
• Opportunity in Crisis: Making Green Energy the New Normal (Asia Foundation)
  Some of the most indelible images of the pandemic have been the brilliant skies that emerged from the smog as the world stayed home and fossil-fuel use plunged. With renewables now cheaper than coal, we must summon the political will to build a green new normal.

Cities and Urbanisation

• Six experts on how we’ll live, work and play in cities after COVID-19 (Fast Company)
  Architects and urban planners from Gensler, Harvard, and Bloomberg Associates explain the changes coming to our shared spaces.

Data and Digital

• Artificial Intelligence and the Fight Against COVID-19 (Nesta)
  AI could play a powerful role in tackling the pandemic, from helping to discover new drugs and vaccines to testing and predicting the spread of infection. But new Nesta analysis of the quality of AI research has found some significant limitations in how it is currently being applied.

Futures

• A post-pandemic world is unlikely to focus on meeting need over human greed (The Conversation)
  Political and economic power-holders will strive for a return to pre-pandemic ‘normality’.
• Exploring the impact of COVID-19 in Africa: A scenario analysis to 2030 (Institute of Security Studies)
  This new study assesses the likely impact of COVID-19 on Africa over the next decade. Comparing three scenarios on growth and mortality with the continent’s pre-pandemic development projections, it examines impacts on average incomes, poverty levels and SDG targets, and how to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience.
• Martin Wolf – The World After the Pandemic (Podcast) (How To Academy)
  The world after 2020 will be very different from the world we left. But how? Will the pandemic lead to the greatest upheaval in the social contract since the second world war, the end of globalisation, the beginning of the Asian century? Will it lead to tax rises, inflation, further austerity? Hear from the world’s preeminent financial journalist.
• Navigating the transition to sustainability amidst new forces, positive and negative (Forum for the Future)
  Caroline Ashley, Global Director of System Change Programmes at Forum for the Future, examines the emergent positive and negative forces actively shaping the post-COVID-19 reality and reasserts the need for a just transition.
• Optimistic or pessimistic about Covid-19? No need to choose (From Poverty to Power FP2P)
  Jordi Vaquer, Director for Global Foresight and Analysis at the Open Society Foundations, argues this is a time when defenders of open society can neither afford to sit comfortably upon the vindication of their analysis by events, nor to simply spring into action following their mood, their gut and their time-tested handbook. It is the moment to be bold, imaginative and thorough in our thinking about the future.
• Rethink: The edge of change (Podcast) (BBC World Service)
  How the coronavirus pandemic has created new opportunities to change our world.
• The Long Shadow Of The Future (Noema)
  The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how valuable it is for governments to have operational expertise, plan for the long-term and socialise certain risks.

Multilateralism and international cooperation

• Humanitarian Financing Is Failing the COVID-19 Frontlines (Centre for Global Development)
  Longstanding weaknesses in the humanitarian business model are undermining the COVID-19 response in fragile and conflict affected states.Now should be an opportunity for international NGOs to rethink their role in humanitarian delivery entering into subcontracting relationship for operational delivery.

Pandemic Specific Consequences and Responses (economic, health & social impacts)

• Let the learning begin — a WHO open-access platform could transform COVID-19 response (Devex)
  Information is only as good as our ability to find, understand, and use it. Hence, WHO should convene an independent panel to verify information and decide what to include into a global information portal for health authorities, journalists, academic experts, and civil society.

     3. Policy

• And now some questions for China’s TikTok (EU Observer)
  The EU named China as responsible for targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns around COVID-19. Given the questions about the extent to which TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, propagates censorship, TikTok’s membership in the EU Code of Practice risks prematurely legitimising the platform as a responsible information space actor.
• Can the AU protect citizens against COVID-19 abuses? (Institute for Security Studies)
  The African Peer Review Mechanism’s pandemic governance guidelines are useful, but do they go far enough?
• COVID-19 & the Risks to Children in Urban Contexts (Policy Brief) (World Vision)
  Residents of urban slums, informal settlements and low-income neighbourhoods endure living conditions that make it challenging to protect against COVID-19. This policy brief looks at how World Vision is responding to anticipate and experience the impacts in urban areas and assess the needs of the most vulnerable. It provides recommendations for what governments, the UN and other NGOs can do to lessen their suffering.
• Left out & Unaccounted for: How COVID-19 is exposing inequalities in cities (World Vision)
  At World Vision, we are responding to COVID-19 in over 253 cities across all regions in both stable and fragile contexts. COVID-19 is currently a trending global challenge, but for urban hotspots, it is one of many. Now more than ever, the international community must amplify its voice in calling for accelerated actions to alleviate poverty and inequality in urban areas, making cities “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” (SDG 11).
• Survey: Advocacy in the Time of COVID-19 (Africa) (Advocacy Accelerator )
  The Advocacy Accelerator is keen to take the pulse of how change-makers within the advocacy ecosystem in Africa are being impacted by and responding to the current global pandemic COVID-19. The results of this survey will be shared with all who participate (organised by country) in order to inform your advocacy programme planning.

     4. Operational

• The Safe People + Data Initiative (Dobility)
  This new initiative provides methodologies and resources for safer data collection, in response to COVID-19 and the growing need for safety-focused innovation. It offers tools and insights to support safer methods of in-person data collection and alternative methods of reducing in-person interactions and collecting data remotely.
  
• Dynamic Accountability and COVID-19 (Global Standard for CSO Accountability)
  Due to the COVID-19 crisis, many countries have imposed restrictive measures to ensure that the spread of the disease can be contained. In this new reality, Dynamic Accountability is taking a different shape. This post suggests some key takeaways and tips for organisations who wish to practice dynamic accountability during this difficult time.
• What does Accountability Look Like During Times of Disruption? (Restless Development)
  The disruption caused by COVID19 is a chance to forge new ways of working, that put accountability practices and decentralised organisation at their heart, says Katie Fuhs.

Robert Vysoudil

Communications Student Assistant

International Civil Society