Disrupt & Innovate

This year´s development definitely caught us all by surprise. The reality of Coronavirus translated into very real restrictions on our freedom to move around, meet-up or simply to sit at the office together. This woke up many of us and made even more obvious the path that is no longer a choice, but a necessity: to act together in building inclusive communities for us all. In this article, we invite you on a journey towards inclusion, which is the topic and the long-term goal of the virtual conference Global Perspectives 2020.

Inclusion has many layers and aspects, relating to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, economic status and many more. We can argue about the success of our communities towards it, but many marginalised groups not only in the developing world, but also in cosmopolitan cities, such as Berlin, remain neglected. We still have a lot to do, especially if we truly hope to achieve at least some of the ambitious 17 SDGs[1] during the last decade for their implementation.

The urgency and the importance of the topic put it on top of the International Civil Society Centre´s agenda. We decided to offer safe space for interaction and exchange on inclusion within the community we host. At our biggest platform for exchange, Global Perspectives, participants from around the world will explore new ideas and strategies together on how to make inclusion a fundamental part of our work towards achieving the goals, outlined in the Agenda 2030.

Our aim is to open discussions on:

• Including civil society in political processes;
• Empowering inclusion in CSO programmes;
• Creating and maintaining CSOs as diverse and inclusive organisations.

Global Perspectives is a dynamic place to be, with a diverse group of participants – civil society leaders, academics, social entrepreneurs, journalists and many more. The common theme between them all is their passion to co-create, connect and collaborate to tackle the world’s most pressing problems.

Furthermore, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Global Perspectives will be entirely a virtual experience. We will provide both the award-winning conference mobile application Whova and an interactive software to open up the possibility to dive deep into the virtual networking. With shorter sessions scheduled to accommodate different time zones, we will enable high-levels of creativity, proactive engagement and fully inclusive discussions with participants from all over the globe.

This experience sounds exciting? It truly is, and we want to invite you to be part of it! There are many possibilities for collaboration, sponsorship and tailored support. Don’t hesitate to and discover the most suitable one.

We welcome you to support our effort for sustainable inclusion now!

[1]  https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

• Global Perspectives
• Global Perspectives 2020

Anna Simitchieva

Fundraising Officer

International Civil Society Centre

Anna joined the Centre as Fundraising Officer in November 2019. From Bulgaria, Anna has studied and worked in Germany, Spain, Colombia and Armenia. She gained previous fundraising experience at SODI e.V. in Berlin and in the Caucasus, when she was sent to Armenia by Bread for the World to support Women for Development as Communication for Development and Fundraising Officer for two years. Before entering the nonprofit sector, Anna worked for different (inter-)national TV stations for live news productions in Berlin for more than 5 years, among them RBB and Deutsche Welle. Anna holds a MA in Intercultural Communication Studies from the European University Viadrina in Frankurt Oder and a BA in Journalism and Communication Studies and Spanish from the Free University Berlin.

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

• Controlling COVID-19 will carry a devastating economic cost for developing countries (The Conversation)
  Isolation measures threaten the food security of millions of people. This means that even if the epidemic is successfully managed at the health level, the impact on economies – and people – will be devastating.
• COVID-19 is deadlier for black Brazilians, a legacy of structural racism that dates back to slavery (The Conversation)
  In Brazil, black COVID-19 patients are dying at higher rates than white patients. Worse housing quality, working conditions and health care help to explain the pandemic’s racially disparate toll.
• COVID-19’s Impact on Nonprofits’ Revenues, Digitization, and Mergers (Stanford Social Innovation Review)
  Interactive charts show how hundreds of nonprofits face dramatic changes in their operations and plans as the pandemic continues to upend life around the world.
• Global Economic Prospects Report, June 2020 edition (World Bank)
  Lasting Scars of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Relevant chapters of the World Bank Group’s latest forecasts for the global economy.
• Government responses to COVID-19 are exacerbating gender-based violence (Open Global Rights)
  Government-mandated lockdowns are trapping millions of women and girls with their abusers, isolating them from support networks.
• How to talk about COVID-19: insights from the British public (Bond)
  How should international NGOs connect with the current public mindset? New research from the Development Engagement Lab (DEL) sheds light on the British public’s receptivity to development cooperation in the context of the global coronavirus pandemic.
• Local professionals step in to fill delivery gap amid questions over resources (Devex)
  Travel restrictions are enhancing the role of local aid workers, but many say they are still not receiving the support they need, according to Devex’s latest survey.
• Northern-founded NGOs: the time has come to face existential funding challenges (5 Oaks Consulting, guest blog)
  The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated underlying fundamentals challenging the financial stability of seven Northern-founded INGO families.
• The political economy of the fight against COVID-19 in Africa (Democracy in Africa)
  In spite of the lack of evidence of rapid spread, African governments have been accused of copy/pasting strategies used in the global north, creating a double burden of economic and political crisis. This paper reviews how African countries are responding to the pandemic, and reflects on the opportunities/threats the virus represents for policy and practice.
• What are citizens saying during the COVID-19 crisis? (Inter-American Development Bank)
  IDB’s tool shows the perceptions and concerns expressed online by citizens of Latin America and the Caribbean on the COVID-19 pandemic. This data enables better listening and understanding of various categories of information related to civic needs, related to dignity, trust, security and visibility.

    2. Strategic

Biodiversity and Climate Change

• Dispatch From 2030: What a Global Pandemic Taught Us About Tackling Climate Change (Stanford Social Innovation Review)
  A look back from 2030 reveals how ambitious industrial policies, high-quality data, and courageous leadership saved us from an affliction worse than COVID-19.

Civic Space and Human Rights

• Aggravating circumstances: How coronavirus impacts human trafficking (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime)
  Poverty, lack of social or economic opportunity and limited labour protections are the main root causes and drivers that render people vulnerable or cause them to fall victim to human trafficking. This unprecedented crisis will likely exacerbate all of those factors and result in developments that must be noted by anti-human-trafficking communities and stakeholders.
• Coronavirus and the right to online political participation (Open Global Rights)
  Making access to the internet a human right can address inequalities in access to public discourse, especially where free speech is limited.
• COVID-19 and the politics of the year of the nurse (The South African Institute of International Affairs)
  The challenges critical medical personnel are currently facing all lead back to a central question of care. There are three main challenges these critical workers face: insufficient supply of necessary protective equipment on a global scale; growing hostility towards them; and difficulties with access to childcare.
• Southern Africa: Persons with albinism especially vulnerable in the face of COVID-19 (Amnesty International )
  This article argues that South African governments must ensure the protection and well-being of persons with albinism, who are increasingly vulnerable amid the COVID-19 crisis as lockdowns across the region hinder access to healthcare facilities and skin cancer clinics as well as vital sunscreen.
  
• Will COVID-19 increase religious hostilities and discrimination? (Open Global Rights )
  COVID-19 and its impacts may hit some religious minorities disproportionately hard, exacerbating economic inequalities, social hostilities and discrimination.

Data and Digital

• Africa must unmute its mic as e-diplomacy takes root (Institute for Security Studies)
  COVID-19 could make diplomacy more inclusive, but Africa’s weak internet connectivity means it might be left behind.
• Supporting civil society during the COVID-19 pandemic: The potentials of online collaborations for social accountability (U4)
  COVID-19 highlights the potentials of online collaborations for social accountability. There are new opportunities for civil society to embrace digital civic engagement as an anti-corruption initiative.

Economic

• OECD Economic Outlook: The world economy on a tightrope (OECD)
  COVID-19 has triggered the most severe economic recession in nearly a century and is causing enormous damage to people’s health, jobs and well-being. The Outlook focuses on two equally probable scenarios – one in which a second wave of infections, with renewed lock-downs, hits before the end of 2020, and one in which another major outbreak is avoided.

Education

• Future shock: 25 Education trends post COVID-19 (Foresight for Development)
  School closures carry high social and economic costs for people across communities, with a particularly severe for the most vulnerable and marginalised families. The resulting disruptions exacerbate already existing disparities within the education system but also in other aspects of their lives. This blog summarises 25 related trends from UNESCO analysis.

Food security

• COVID-19 recovery is a chance to improve the African food system (The Conversation)
  What we see happening as a result of actions to contain COVID-19 is like a global natural disaster. It’s also an opportunity for a different kind of recovery. Going back to “business as usual” investments in agriculture and food systems could reproduce those systems’ inequities. Instead, recovery efforts should be geared towards creating a better future.

Futures

• COVID-19 scenarios for the humanitarian ecosystem: Opportunities to translate challenges into transformation (IARAN)
  The global response to the pandemic is rapidly changing and there is a high degree of uncertainty. IARAN’s preliminary scenarios are focused on exploring the factors they think are most influential in driving social/political and economic changes rather than reflecting the current situation in any particular region.
• COVID-19 Global Aftershocks: The Secondary Implications of COVID-19 across International Development and Humanitarian Sectors (InterAction)
  A summary of some of the COVID-19 secondary impacts across the humanitarian and development sectors, including: children and youth, climate change, conflict, democracy, development assistance, education, food security, gender equality, global health, WASH and humanitarian assistance. Updated since its original publication on May 1, 2020.
• Global poverty: coronavirus could drive it up for the first time since the 1990s (The Conversation)
  75% of new COVID-19 cases detected each day are now in developing countries. Governments face juggling the health consequences with economic ones. Our research shows that the poverty impact of the crisis will soon be felt in three key ways. There is likely to be more poverty. It is likely to become more severe. And as a consequence, the location of global poverty will also change.
• What a “Feminist” Approach to Fighting COVID-19 Might Have Achieved (Just Security)
  Imagine how COVID-19 might play out differently with institutions informed by “feminist” principles of cooperation, human security, pragmatism, transparency, diversity, and inclusivity.

Gender Equality

• COVID-19: “Who is Skilled and Who is Unskilled in this Pandemic Moment?” (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom)
  In this article, Cynthia Enloe realises that there are so many times in life when one finds one lacks the relevant skills to make sense of, and to grapple effectively with a pressing condition. That repeated realisation has made her think about skills – and what “counts” as a skill, and who gets to do the “counting.”
• COVID-19: Making our Recovery Green and Feminist (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom)
  This article explores the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment and advises that the recovery from the pandemic should be feminist and green in nature.
• Rape cases spike in South Sudan as girls and women left vulnerable during COVID-19 (Plan International)
  A spate of rape cases in South Sudan has exposed the extreme risks girls and women have been left to face in COVID-19 pandemic, warns Plan International.

Humanitarian

• This global pandemic could transform humanitarianism forever. Here’s how (The New Humanitarian)
  As the crisis born of this global pandemic has evolved, some of the promises of deep transformation in a humanitarian aid sector that has long resisted reform have proven overly optimistic – at least so far. Here are 13 ways the pandemic may change the future of humanitarianism – and the forces of resistance that may get in the way.

Multilateralism and international cooperation

• COVID-19 responses expose gaps in global governance (The South African Institute of International Affairs)
  This report analyses the effectiveness of the WHO and explores the ways in which the pandemic has exposed not only how far the world is from effective and unified global governance, but also a crisis of confidence in the institutions expected to guide international action and cooperation.
• Tackling COVID-19 as a Grand Challenge (Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society)
  How does the COVID-19 crisis relate to other grand challenges and how should we deal with, such as climate change?

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

• Epidemics and Social Observation: Why Africa Needs a Different Approach to COVID-19 (African Arguments)
  In the absence of a vaccine, the main tool for control of COVID-19 is human behavioural change. Social scientists are not fully agreed on what determines behavioural change, but there is a broad consensus that individual agency is influenced by social factors. It matters what your family, friends and neighbours think.
• Will Patents stop COVID drugs from saving lives? (From Poverty to Power)
  The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a global race of public- and private-led research to develop vaccines and treatments. Will patents hinder access to the products it generates? Comparison with HIV/AIDS indicated access problems may mainly affect middle-income countries facing higher prices. Low-income countries will likely receive drugs at discounted prices, and with governments and philanthropic donors covering the costs.
• Youth or consequences: Put youth at the center of COVID-19 recovery (Brookings Institution)
  This article argues that to head off the worst repercussions of this youth unemployment challenge in the wake of the coronavirus, we must act now, focusing on three critical issues, education, engagement and employment.

Politics & Governance

• 6 experts on how capitalism will emerge after COVID-19 (Fast Company)
  We have an unprecedented opportunity to rein in capitalism’s excesses and reshape our democracy. Here’s how business leaders and experts from MIT, Harvard, and more would tackle the biggest problems. What’s been lost—and what could be gained—in the new world order?

     3. Policy

• Ensuring women’s representation in COVID-19 policymaking (Online event) (Devex)
  This 1-hour virtual event discussed why there’s an urgent need to integrate women in COVID-19 policymaking and highlight some of the work that has already been done to advance their voices in not only the response to this pandemic, but also long-term recovery efforts.
• It’s Not Just About Health: Four Lessons From Ebola for the COVID-19 Response in Conflict-Affected Countries (Peacelab.blog / Search for Common Ground)
  Lessons from Search for Common Ground’s response to the Ebola and COVID-19 epidemics: Support civil society in violence prevention and trust-building measures, provide adequate training for security actors, and ensure the meaningful inclusion of local communities.
• Mining industry profits from pandemic (The Ecologist)
  More than 300 organisations from around the world have released an open-statement condemning the ways that the mining industry and numerous governments are taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to manufacture new mining opportunities and enhance their damaged reputations.
• NGOs call for continued support for transparency and accountability
  This letter calls on providers of development assistance to continue to support transparency, accountability and open government during COVID-19 and the global economic crisis. The aim is to have it published in the media and to distribute widely through our online tools and networks once published. NGOs working on transparency, accountability and open government can sign here.
• Strongest Together: An NGO Consortia View on Structural Issues in the Humanitarian Response to COVID-19 (White paper)
  COVID-19 has aggravated previously deteriorating humanitarian conditions and increasingly complex operational environments for frontline responders, prompting new operational challenges to emerge. InterAction has partnered with nongovernmental organization (NGO) consortia in 13 countries globally to draft this Working Paper delineating these challenges.
• With attacks against health workers on the rise, advocates call for action (Devex )
  Attacks against health workers have increased under the strain of COVID-19, according to a cohort of medical and humanitarian organizations. In a joint declaration, they call for governments to do more than talk about it.

     4. Operational

• How telemedicine can provide a lifeline for health workers as well as patients (Devex)
  Portraying Dr. Chibuzo Okonta of MSF on remote diagnosis and treatment of patients in conflict or Covid-19 situations: could it prove a key tool for ensuring the safety of health workers and providing patient care?
  

• COVID-19
• COVID-19 Resources

Robert Vysoudil

Communications Student Assistant

International Civil Society Centre

Following on from their recent guest blog on populism and civic engagement, linking to the themes of our 2019 Innovation Report, the Democratic Society shares their experiences of another exciting project looking at climate action in European cities, as we look ahead to our upcoming 2020 version of the Innovation Report looking at urban inclusion.

By inviting and empowering residents to take informed decisions, we can ensure a collective responsibility around challenges that affect our communities, and we are able to strengthen the democratic foundation of the places we live in. 

Demand is growing for climate action that matches the scale and urgency of one of the biggest challenges of our generation. We need to ensure that this transformation process is adaptive, democratic and fair for everyone, but particularly marginalised groups in societies. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has created a need for new ways of working and a different angle on existing climate action endeavours. These huge challenges require response structures within our democracies that are agile, local and informed by evidence. However, these are of risk of being eroded within a state of emergency.

At the Democratic Society (Demsoc), we already knew we needed a longer-term, more conversational approach for changes to be planned and delivered with people, and a stronger civic infrastructure to allow this to happen. We are fully engaged in making sure that everyone in Europe – not just the eloquent and the sharp-elbowed – can access those opportunities, and that their voices are heard in a fair balance.

This is where our work together with EIT Climate KIC, called ‘Healthy, Clean Cities’ – Deep Demonstration’, comes to the fore. With 15 of the most ambitious mayors, municipalities and city communities in Europe, we are designing joined-up innovations to unlock wholesale transformation across all city systems – from mobility to waste to energy to health and the built environment.

As a design partner, the Democratic Society is set to bring participative methods into play in order to make sure that changes are made with people at the centre of the process in these 15 European cities, each with its own specific challenges and goals.

Experimentation builds long-term democratic and participatory capacity where we are working 

Our experiments in each place support both grassroots- and government-led efforts to ensure cities are becoming healthy, clean places to live, with methods that allow everyone’s voices to be expressed and heard. This has the underlying goal of building up the long-term democratic and participatory capacity and structures in the places where we’re working. In each city, our Local Connectors invest in localised and long-term efforts to empower residents and civil society. Here, we share some experiences from three cities: Kraków, Vienna and Madrid.

1. Kraków, Poland

The role of residents in climate action is acknowledged by the city of Kraków as a high priority topic. Our Local Connector, Aleksandra Ziętek, sees the transition to a post-Covid-19 ‘new normal’ as an ”…unexpected experience which should benefit the whole process in the long run”. It is creating opportunities for us to use and build on the city’s existing public participation mechanisms to implement innovative and coherent working methods with communities. “COVID-19 and the resulting lockdown shed a light on the city’s resilience issues,” says Aleksandra, which sparked conversations around how residents use the city – how they travel, work and play – and how this resonates with the existing models and whether they live up to people’s current and future needs.

It also touches upon questions on how residents participate in the city’s life and how we can shape its future: “These issues led us to come up with five potential Kraków missions to pursue, one of them being a ‘flexible and responsive society’ which directly addresses the new circumstances we have experienced,” Aleksandra concluded.

2. Vienna, Austria

Vienna has only recently added resident participation to its main strategy for sustainable development. Our Local Connector there, Daniela Amann, also sees the opportunity to build on the city’s existing capacities by identifying how participation can be better embedded in the city’s structure to enable governance learning, improved collaboration between city departments and – as a result – better participatory processes.

Daniela explains, “While some city departments have high standards in participation and experiment with innovative actions, others are still taking their first steps in public participation. In particular, city departments whose responsibility include climate action, such as energy, are lacking personal and financial resources to develop strategies to conduct participatory processes.”

Sarah Haas, the City of Vienna’s Deep Demonstrations Programme Manager, explains that: “Decarbonising Vienna – the aim of the Deep Demonstrations programme – is impossible without ensuring a just transition. [Demsoc brings] new perspectives and their years-long expertise in participation and social inclusion.”

3. Madrid, Spain

Our work in Madrid is moving in two directions:

1. Focus on existing community initiatives, which Local Connector Juan López-Aranguren explains as: “we want to check how…local initiatives link with each other, how flexible they are and how they could be escalated to a more ecosystemic approach.”
2. Focus on city government and its needs, which Juan describes as “Sometimes the administration and private sector have really good programmes but they don’t know how to link these resources with [the work done by the] civic society… We can find a lot of creative solutions, research, etc. in informal proposals, such as civic action. Our role is to connect the needs with the responses and facilitate the connection and a good understanding to establish protocols or methodologies.”

One of these is the design of a ‘learning by doing’ methodology called “Communities in Practice” for a group of civic experts working on big issues, such as mobility or zero waste, to take an ecosystem approach to design their response. The city is now looking into how mobility can be reduced by learning from the current pandemic measures, and allowing for more teleworking and community workspace engagement.

Promoting ‘climate neutrality in collaboration’

In these cities and beyond, we are keen to promote ‘climate neutrality in collaboration’ to improve the quality of local projects, increase trust in government institutions and create local jobs and positive economic impacts. Holistic and sustainable changes in these cities will only be achieved if done together and with everyone in mind, with the residents being the ones to gain the most.

Follow the Democratic Society on Twitter and Facebook (@demsoc) to find out more about the project or visit  www.demsoc.org to sign up for our newsletter and stay updated.

Nadja Nickel

Director for Climate

Democratic Society

Nadja Nickel is the Director for Climate of the Democratic Society, Europe’s leading democracy non-for-profit. Previously, Nadja was the Managing Director of WithoutViolence, a non-profit communications and advocacy agency for the social sector. At WithoutViolence, she applied lessons learned from research and from existing behavioral science insights to solutions-focused advocacy on the issue of ending violence against women and children. In past positions at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), she advised former Federal President Horst Köhler in his role on the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Nadja holds an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University, Sweden.

Aleksandar Brezar

Western Balkans Network Lead/Communications

Democratic Society

Aleksandar Brezar joined the Democratic Society in 2019. His work with the Democratic Society involves finding novel ways of approaching democratic governance and citizen engagement in the Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership areas of Europe, while addressing a variety of key topics, from climate change to European membership perspectives. Coming from a background in media and culture prior to joining Demsoc, Aleksandar worked on projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider Western Balkans area, with partners including USAID, TI, OSF, the European Commission and British Council.