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2. PTSS Virtual Global Alumni Community of Interest Workshop: The Impact of the COVID–19 Pandemic on Terrorism and Counterterrorism
- Author:
- James K. Wither
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper presents the findings of a George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies (GCMC) Counterterrorism (CT) Virtual Global Alumni Community of Interest (COI) workshop held on January 20-21, 2021. The objectives of the workshop were as follows: Analyze the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on terrorism and CT nationally and internationally. Identify the extent to which the pandemic has created vulnerabilities that terrorists have been able to exploit to mount attacks and/or attract new recruits. Explore the extent to which the pandemic might make societies more vulnerable to terrorism and irregular warfare in the longer term and the reasons why this could happen. Formulate policy recommendations for the global counterterrorism community from the perspective of GCMC CT Alumni. The virtual workshop was structured around four panels, each with two alumni panelists with practical or academic expertise on the selected topics. GCMC CT faculty acted as panel moderators. The panels examined the impact of the pandemic on terrorist financing as well as terrorism and CT in the Middle East, the Americas, and the Sahel in Africa. Thirty selected global alumni took part in the workshop and raised additional questions and comments after the formal panel sessions. Initially, planning for the COI took place in spring 2020, when it was wrongly assumed that the worst of the pandemic would be over by 2021 and assessments of its impact would, therefore, be relatively conclusive. However, given the continued threat posed by COVID-19, with countries around the world still suffering from its impact, the assessments below must be regarded as interim. Therefore, the workshop made no specific policy recommendations. Marshall Center CT faculty members, along with their colleagues at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia–Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), have researched the impact of the pandemic on terrorism since March 2020.1 The COI followed a survey of alumni on the impact of the pandemic on terrorism and CT conducted in October 2020.2 Over four hundred military and civilian counterterrorism practitioners responded to the survey from Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Unsurprisingly, many of the conclusions from the recent workshop are similar to impact statements in the earlier survey.
- Topic:
- Defense Policy, Terrorism, Military Strategy, Counter-terrorism, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
3. The Remittance Effect: A Lifeline for Developing Economies Through The Pandemic and into Recovery
- Author:
- Oxford Economics
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Oxford Economics
- Abstract:
- The rising value of remittance flows into developing countries in recent years is often not widely appreciated. At a macro level, remittances support growth and are less volatile than other private capital flows, tending to be relatively stable through the business cycle. At a micro level, remittances benefit recipient households in developing countries by providing an additional source of income and lower incidences of extreme poverty. Remittances act as a form of 'social insurance', supporting households' capabilities to resist economic shocks. Remittances help recipient households to increase spending on essential goods and services, invest in healthcare and education, as well as allowing them to build their assets, both liquid (cash) and fixed (property), enhancing access to financial services and investment opportunities. Understanding the role and importance of remittances is particularly important at the current juncture, with the global economy experiencing a uniquely sharp and synchronized shock as a result of COVID-19. This report examines the available evidence on remittance flows and their potential economic effects. The report explores and shows how remittance flows remain a crucial lifeline in supporting developing economies through the current pandemic crisis and into the recovery. Although remittances slowed during the pandemic, they remained more resilient than other private capital flows, making them even more important as a source of foreign inflows for receiving countries. While the World Bank estimates that remittance flows to developing countries (low-and-middle income economies) contracted by 7.0% in 2020, this decline is likely to have been far less severe than the downturn in private investor capital. Looking forward, the World Bank predicts that remittance flows to developing countries will contract by a further 7.5% in 2021. But the outlook remains subject to a high degree of uncertainty with both upside and downside risks. A wider set of dynamics – including central bank data outturns for 2020, economic outlooks for the world economy in 2021, survey data and remittance consumer market fundamentals – suggest that while there are downside risks, there is also potential that 2020 and 2021 will not turn out as weak as predicted by the World Bank and for a period of strong remittance growth in the medium-term as sender economies recover and demand from developing economies remains high.
- Topic:
- Development, Recovery, Economic Development, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
4. Freeing Fiscal Space: A human rights imperative in response to COVID-19
- Author:
- Ignacio Saiz
- Publication Date:
- 01-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Institute for Development and Peace
- Abstract:
- Of the many dimensions of inequality that the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified, inequality between countries is one of the most glaring, yet one of the least effectively addressed. While the pandemic’s immediate health impacts have been felt in countries across all income levels, its eco- nomic consequences have been particularly dev- astating in countries of the Global South. Fuelling these inequalities is the disparity of resources that countries count on to respond to the crisis. International cooperation has never been more essential to address this disparity and enable all countries to draw on the resources they need to tackle the pandemic and its economic fallout. Besides the provision of emergency financial support, wealthier countries and international financial institutions (IFIs) need to cooperate by lifting the barriers their debt and tax policies and practices impose on the fiscal space of low- and middle-income countries. As this article explores, such cooperation is not only a global public health imperative. It is also a binding human rights obli- gation. Framing it as such could play an impor- tant role in generating the accountability and political will that has so far been sorely lacking.
- Topic:
- Fiscal Policy, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
5. COVID-19 and the Global Vaccine Race
- Author:
- Lorenza Errighi
- Publication Date:
- 03-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- If 2020 was the year of “mask diplomacy”, as countries raced to tackle the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and acquire the necessary protective gear and equipment, 2021 is likely to be remembered as the year of “vaccine diplomacy”. Growing competition between states to secure the necessary quantities of vaccines to inoculate their population has already become an established feature of the post-COVID international system and such trends are only likely to increase in the near future. It normally takes up to a decade to transition from the development and testing of a vaccine in a laboratory to its large-scale global distribution. Despite current challenges, the speed of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns is unprecedented. To put an end to the current pandemic – which in one year has led to the loss of 2.6 million lives and triggered the worst economic recession since the Second World War – the goal is to ensure the widest immunisation of the world population in a timeframe of 12 to 18 months. In this context, COVID vaccines emerge as instruments of soft power, as they symbolise, on the one hand, scientific and technological supremacy and, on the other, means to support existing and emerging foreign policy partnerships and alliances with relevant geopolitical implications. From their experimentation in laboratories, to their purchase and distribution, the vaccine has emerged as a significant tool for competition between powers, often associated with the promotion of competing developmental and governance models across third countries.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Health, Vaccine, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
6. Planetary Health: A More Resilient World Post-COVID-19?
- Author:
- Margareth Sembiring
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- The care of nature offers holistic solutions to a wide range of issues that include climate change and the pandemic. The emerging concept of planetary health has the potential to contribute and, if widely adopted, may lead to a more resilient world post-COVID-19.
- Topic:
- Public Health, Pandemic, Resilience, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
7. ACLED 2020: The Year in Review
- Author:
- Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
- Publication Date:
- 03-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
- Abstract:
- One year since the official start of the pandemic in March 2020, COVID-19 has killed more than two million people and brought at least half the earth’s population under lockdown (New York Times, 11 March 2021; New York Times, 3 April 2020). The health crisis has had major impacts on worldwide conflict and disorder patterns, contributing to an overall decrease in political violence levels last year even as it fueled an increase in demonstration activity. And while the pandemic’s effects have been global in scale, they have not been felt equally across conflict contexts: although violence declined on the aggregate level, it rose in nearly half the world’s countries. As vaccine distribution accelerates and countries relax public health restrictions, conflict levels are expected to increase throughout 2021(for more, see ACLED’s special report: Ten Conflicts to Worry About in 2021). Last year, ACLED expanded data collection to Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia, the United States, and all of Europe, achieving near global coverage. Our 2020 annual report reviews the past 12 months of data on political violence and demonstration activity around the world.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Demonstrations
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
8. A Year of COVID-19
- Author:
- Roudabeh Kishi
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED)
- Abstract:
- March 2021 marks the first anniversary of the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). One year on, this report explores ACLED’s special coverage of the pandemic’s impact on political violence and protest trends around the world – analyzing changes in demonstration activity, state repression, mob attacks, overall rates of armed conflict, and more through the COVID-19 Disorder Tracker.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Conflict, COVID-19, and Demonstrations
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
9. Are we facing a wave of conflict in high-income countries?
- Author:
- Sarah Cliffe, Daniel Mack, Céline Monnier, Nendirmwa Noel, Paul von Chamier, and Leah Zamore
- Publication Date:
- 02-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation
- Abstract:
- The recent wave of violent protests and unrest across the developed world – the storming of the US Capitol during the electoral college process and the riots in the Netherlands, among others – questions the assumption that high-income countries have become immune to large-scale internal political violence. Are we facing a new wave of high-income conflict? At a minimum, increased violent unrest, political assassinations, and domestic terrorism in the next ten years seem possible, unless governments focus on avoiding impunity and establishing shared understanding of facts, reducing inequality and prejudice, and building institutional resilience. This analysis examines whether these recent events augur a wider shift in conflict risk to high-income countries, akin to the shift seen from low to middle-income countries 20 years ago. Given these events, this analysis systematically reviews conflict risks in high-income countries, as well as offers a framework that has been widely applied in the developing world to examine the risk factors for violent conflict in wealthy countries, including second generation impacts of COVID-19.
- Topic:
- Conflict, Protests, COVID-19, and Civil Unrest
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus and United States of America
10. How can we work towards economic recovery for all? Financing for Development: the issues, challenges, and opportunities in 2021
- Author:
- Sarah Cliffe, Karina Gerlach, and Leah Zamore
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation
- Abstract:
- 2021, we all hope, will be the year of recovery. If COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out at scale, including in the developing world, global economic recovery will be large. But that in itself ensures neither that all countries will be included in the recovery, nor that all people within each country will see the gains. A rising tide, as we have seen only too well since US president John F. Kennedy first used the phrase in 1963, does not lift all boats. Elsewhere, CIC has analyzed the high demand for transformative policies in high- and low-income countries alike since the COVID-19 crisis began, including policies for domestic action on inequality and socioeconomic exclusion. This piece takes a more global view and considers how to ensure that all countries benefit, and examines the issues, challenges, and opportunities in financing for development. It looks first at the key political messages that explain why 2021 should be a year of urgent, ambitious global action for shared economic recovery; secondly at the measures under discussion (which are expanded in an annex); thirdly at the political interests at play; and fourthly at foreseeable scenarios for agreement. Last, we outline the calendar of relevant policy meetings this year and the challenge of orchestrating progress between them.
- Topic:
- Governance, Reform, Finance, Multilateralism, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus