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1. Delay, Detect, Defend: Preparing for a Future in which Thousands Can Release New Pandemics

Author:
Kevin M. Esvelt
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The world is demonstrably vulnerable to the introduction of a single pandemic virus with a comparatively low case fatality rate. The deliberate and simultaneous release of many pandemic viruses across travel hubs could threaten the stability of civilisation. Current trends suggest that within a decade, tens of thousands of skilled individuals will be able to access the information required for them to single-handedly cause new pandemics. Safeguarding civilisation from the catastrophic misuse of biotechnology requires delaying the development and misuse of pandemic-class agents while building systems capable of reliably detecting threats and preventing nearly all infections.
Topic:
Security, Public Health, Pandemic, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Transforming Health Crises with Pandemic Therapies Image

Author:
Katherine E. Bliss and J. Stephen Morrison
Publication Date:
11-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security convened a working group on Covid-19 therapies in the fall of 2021 to develop policy recommendations aimed at strengthening U.S. leadership and global action to ensure development of, access to, and uptake of Covid-19 therapies worldwide. Drawing on insights gleaned through private meetings and roundtable discussions with pharmaceutical manufacturers, government officials, representatives of multilateral organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, and building on points raised in an interim report published in July 2022.
Topic:
Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. A Package of Reforms for Financing Pandemic Preparedness and Response for the G7

Author:
Amanda Glassman and Eleni Smitham
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
COVID-19 has shown the detrimental consequences of insufficient and fragmented financing for outbreak preparedness, prevention, and response (PPR). As the world seeks to recover from the current COVID-19 pandemic, and to mitigate recovery needs for future health crises, more must be done to accelerate global efforts to ensure rapid, adequate funding and governance for global health security, which has been under-resourced and under-prioritized. The rationale for reforming and replenishing the global health architecture to prepare for the next pandemic is clear: to protect health, human lives, and economic well-being.[1] Without dedicated and accelerated investment—in scaled up surveillance, strengthened national health systems, enhanced research and development of medical countermeasures, and more—we will continue to face more frequent and more complex epidemics and pandemics in the years ahead, and be less prepared to stop them.[2] Without the capacity to surge financing to respond at-scale to infectious disease outbreaks, we risk a repeat of the devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last July, the High-Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, mandated by the Italian Presidency of the G20, released the report A Global Deal for Our Pandemic Age, laying out policies and investments needed to reduce vulnerabilities to future pandemics.[3] Likewise, in 2021, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response[4] described the shortcomings of the existing architecture and suggested similar policies for the future, including greater assessed contributions for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the need for dedicated financing to prevent and prepare for the next COVID-19 variant and pandemic risk. The Global Preparedness and Monitoring Board’s periodic reports went in this same direction[5] , as did earlier assessments following Ebola, SARS and MERS outbreaks though recommendations often went without implementation.[6] These reports and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic itself have again made clear that existing mechanisms for financing pandemic preparedness and response are not fit-for-purpose, nor at the sufficient speed and scale needed to ensure global health security. Current financing for pandemic preparedness is small, fragmented, and concentrated in the health sector.[7] Different organizations across the global health and international financial institution architecture hold different comparative advantages in mobilizing and deploying monies and need to be fully financed to do what they are best suited to do. However, no institution (that is adequately funded, credible, and capable) is currently mandated to or accountable for ensuring pandemic preparedness, resulting in financing and accountability gaps, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where Global Health Security Action Plans too often go un-costed and unfunded.[8] Further, new regional organizations and groupings are leaders in their own development, and must be a central part of a new global health security architecture—the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Forum for the Progress and Development of South America (PROSUR), among others, are examples. Adequate reforms and robust replenishments of global health organizations new and old are needed to ensure stronger global health security and pandemic preparedness now and in the future. External funders should take a comprehensive view of the major global health initiatives and consider how a range of reforms, when combined, have the potential to respond more coherently and efficiently to the financing demands related to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, other macro risks that affect public spending on health, and in the face of future health threats. There are reasons for optimism. Unlike the experience during previous pandemic threats, COVID-19 has finally seen the International Monetary Fund become more aware and vocal on the need to address both COVID-19 and future pandemic risks as “systemic risk(s) to the global economy, not just the development […] of a particular country.”[9] Finance, health and development policymakers are increasingly coming together in different fora and recognizing the need to invest across sectors and to connect the international financial architecture with health initiatives in ways that will deliver better outcomes.[10]
Topic:
Reform, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. South Korea's Public Diplomacy during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Seeking Status as an Authority in Global Governance

Author:
Kadir Ayhan
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic caught almost all countries unprepared. Some countries, including South Korea (hereafter Korea), managed to deal with the pandemic relatively more successfully than others and had a proactive global posture from early on, including providing aid, and public diplomacy campaigns. In this paper, I explore Korea’s COVID-19-related public diplomacy activities and its aims. I analyze Korea’s COVID-19 humanitarian aid trends, its policy documents, and the tweets related to the pandemic posted by the country’s official public diplomacy account. I find that the pandemic catalyzed what Korea had already been aiming to do, which is improve its global status to be among top authorities across various issue-areas. Due to the nature of the pandemic, Korea’s public diplomacy has been themed around international cooperation and solidarity. I suggest that Korea should hold onto its international cooperation emphasis on public diplomacy, to form the basis for its status-seeking as an authority in global governance in the post-pandemic era.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, Domestic Policy, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, and Global Focus

5. Extraordinary Legal Measures and Their Application as a Response of States to the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author:
Boguslaw Stanislaw Przywora and Karol Dobrzeniecki
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
The topic of the present article is the response of states to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by using extraordinary legal measures provided for in their constitutions and legislation. By reference to the research project's findings, the authors characterise the legal solutions in selected jurisdictions and attempt to demonstrate the relationship between the application of emergency measures and the specific political system of states. By doing so, the authors consider such factors as the territory, population, or type of political regime.
Topic:
Governance, Pandemic, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Legal Sector
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Analysis of the Short-Term and Long-Term Impacts of the Coronavirus Crisis on International Climate Policyt

Author:
Zehra Askinsena Ilkilic and Manuel Andreas Knoll
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey
Abstract:
The coronavirus pandemic has caused far-reaching precautionary measures around the world. Governments’ attempts to get the coronavirus under control have led to the negligence of other important policy areas. Climate policy in particular has been significantly influenced and lost importance on the political agendas of states after the outbreak. Over time, the coronavirus will either disappear or lose its initial impact due to medical measures. Two years after the outbreak of the coronavirus, this paper aims to analyse and evaluate the short-term and long-term impacts of the coronavirus crisis on international climate policy. It is important to analyse how it has shaped international climate policy and what lessons can be learned for dealing with climate change. The analysis is based on the principles and regular functioning of the International Climate Change Regime.
Topic:
Climate Change, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Fragile States Index 2021 – Annual Report

Author:
Natalie Fiertz, Nate Haken, Patricia Taft, Emily Sample, and Wendy Wilson
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Fund for Peace
Abstract:
The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, The Fragile States Index—and the social science framework and software application upon which it is built—makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.
Topic:
Climate Change, Authoritarianism, Employment, Fragile States, Economy, Political stability, Conflict, Crisis Management, Peace, Resilience, COVID-19, Health Crisis, Early Warning, and Risk Assessment
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Middle East, Tajikistan, Germany, Armenia, Central America, Spain, Lebanon, Timor-Leste, North America, Ethiopia, Southeast Asia, El Salvador, Global Focus, and United States of America

8. Meeting the Global Health Challenge to Reduce Death and Disability from Alcohol, Tobacco, and Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption with Corrective Taxes

Author:
Chris Lane and Vinayak Bhardwaj
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
Behind the daily trauma of COVID-19 lies a larger and longer-lasting global health challenge resulting from the consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Using a sample of 25 large advanced and emerging market economies accounting for three-quarters of global GDP, we show that about 60 million productive life years were lost every year in 2000, 2010, and 2019 from death and disability attributable to alcohol, tobacco, and diets high in sugar-sweetened beverages. Using the cost-of-illness framework, the economic value of these lost productive years in 2019 is approximately $2.1 trillion in our country sample (in 2017 purchasing power parity dollars [PPP$]). We show that over a 20-year period, a higher tax effort is associated with larger reductions in economic costs. We also show that total corrective taxes for all the products under investigation fall far short of the indirect costs of consumption in all countries. We conclude that all advanced economies and emerging markets could reap substantial macroeconomic benefits from better health by raising corrective taxes on alcohol and tobacco and by introducing corrective taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages.
Topic:
Health, Disability, Tax Systems, Health Crisis, and Addiction
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis’s Indirect Health Impacts for Women and Girls

Author:
Carleigh Krubiner, Megan O'Donnell, Julia Kaufman, and Shelby Bourgault
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
As donor institutions and governments seek to provide relief and support recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global recession, CGD’s COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative aims to ensure that their policy and investment decisions equitably benefit women and girls. We seek to support decision-makers in understanding the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; assess health, economic, and social policy response measures with a gender lens; and propose evidence-based solutions for an inclusive recovery. Recognizing that the dialogue to date has largely emphasized challenges facing women and girls in high-income settings, our analysis centers on women and girls in low- and middle-income countries. In this policy brief, we summarize the findings of a CGD working paper, Addressing the COVID-19 Crisis’s Indirect Health Impacts for Women and Girls. We examine how the pandemic is affecting women’s and girl’s health, including their sexual and reproductive health; some of the ways national governments and donor institutions have sought to maintain the provision of essential health services; and existing gaps, opportunities, and promising strategies donors and governments should pursue to address indirect harms to women’s and girl’s health during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
Topic:
Health, Children, Women, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. 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

11. How COVID-19 medical supply shortages led to extraordinary trade and industrial policy

Author:
Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, a global shortage of hospital gowns, gloves, surgical masks, and respirators caused policymakers around the world to panic. This paper examines international trade in this personal protective equipment (PPE) during the crisis, with a focus on China, the European Union, and the United States. As the pandemic first hit, China increased imports and decreased exports of PPE, removing considerable quantities of supplies from global markets. For the European Union and United States, the decrease in their imports from China was not immediately replaced by increased trade from other foreign suppliers. Early shortages led to EU and US export controls on their own, domestically produced PPE and other extraordinary policy actions, including a US effort to reserve for itself supplies manufactured in China by a US-headquartered multinational. By April 2020 China’s exports had mostly resumed, and over the rest of the year its export volumes of some products surged, more than doubling compared to pre-pandemic levels. But China’s export prices also skyrocketed and remained elevated through 2020, reflecting severe and continued shortages. This paper documents these facts. It also explores these and other government actions, such as US trade war tariffs and the emergence of US industrial policy in the form of over $1 billion of subsidies to build out its domestic PPE supply chain, as well as potential lessons for future pandemic preparedness and international policy cooperation.
Topic:
Industrial Policy, Economy, Trade, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Supply
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. How COVID-19 vaccine supply chains emerged in the midst of a pandemic

Author:
Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Many months after COVID-19 vaccines were first authorized for public use, still limited supplies could only partially reduce the devastating loss of life and economic costs caused by the pandemic. Could additional vaccine doses have been manufactured more quickly some other way? Would alternative policy choices have made a difference? This paper provides a simple analytical framework through which to view the contours of the vaccine value chain. It then creates a new database that maps the COVID-19 vaccines of Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca/Oxford, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, and CureVac to the product- and location-specific manufacturing supply chains that emerged in 2020 and 2021. It describes the choppy process through which dozens of other companies at nearly 100 geographically distributed facilities came together to scale up global manufacturing. The paper catalogues major pandemic policy initiatives—such as the United States' Operation Warp Speed—that are likely to have affected the timing and formation of those vaccine supply chains. Given the data, a final section identifies further questions for researchers and policymakers.
Topic:
Vaccine, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

13. Lockdown Fatigue: The Diminishing Effects of Quarantines on the Spread of COVID-19

Author:
Patricio Goldstein, Eduardo Levy-Yeyati, and Luca Sartorio
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) have been for most countries the key policy instrument utilized to contain the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of these policies on the virus’ transmission and death toll, for a panel of 152 countries, from the start of the pandemic through December 31, 2020. We find that lockdowns tend to significantly reduce the spread of the virus and the number of related deaths. We also show that this benign impact declines over time: after four months of strict lockdown, NPIs have a significantly weaker contribution in terms of their effect in reducing COVID-19 related fatalities. Part of the fading effect of quarantines could be attributed to an increasing non-compliance with mobility restrictions, as reflected in our estimates of a declining effect of lockdowns on measures of actual mobility. However, we additionally find that a reduction in de facto mobility also exhibits a diminishing effect on health outcomes, which suggests that lockdown fatigues may have introduced broader hurdles to containment policies.
Topic:
Crisis Management, Public Policy, Pandemic, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Lockdown Policies
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support to Sustain Peace: Four Areas to Explore for Improving Practice

Author:
Paige Arthur and Céline Monnier
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
After experimenting with months of lockdown and imposed social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, people everywhere now have a more immediate understanding of how prolonged crisis can create challenges for both individuals’ mental health as well as maintaining the social fabric of communities. However, social fragmentation and mental distress created by adverse environments are not new, nor are they limited to COVID-19. Gross social injustices or armed conflicts have provoked wide-spread mental suffering, broken down social norms, and undermined social cohesion since time immemorial. Generations grow up in the midst of violence, normalizing it, or losing capacity to trust others or their institutions. Hence, neglecting the psychosocial impacts of social injustices and violence on the individual and society undermines other efforts to build peaceful societies. Nevertheless, the use of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) approaches to build peace or prevent violent conflict remains anecdotal and ad hoc. This paper summarizes the existing arguments for why MHPSS should be more systematically used to sustain peace, and offers four opportunities to use MHPSS approaches in sustaining peace efforts at the UN: Support national capacities; Integrate MHPSS as a normal part of sustaining peace strategies; Increase expertise on MHPSS as part of sustaining peace; Creative partnerships to support an integrated approach.
Topic:
Mental Health, Peace, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. The Impact of COVID-19 on CSDP: Forging Opportunity out of Crisis?

Author:
Tobias Pietz
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Union Institute for Security Studies
Abstract:
When the Covid-19 pandemic began to sweep through the world in the early months of 2020, no country or international organisation had contingency plans in place to deal with a crisis that could occur anywhere and affect everybody simultaneously. In the case of the missions and operations deployed under the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), Covid-19 had a severe impact, including on Brussels-based personnel and structures, early on. In hindsight, it is easy to criticise the first three months of crisis management at the CSDP structures in Brussels as well as what operations and missions did in the field. However, the unique and novel challenge of this pandemic must never be lost sight of in any assessment of CSDP performance. The pandemic and its effect on the CSDP revealed some crucial challenges faced by EU missions and their operational and planning structures. This Brief tries to shed light on the impact that Covid-19 has had on the CSDP and points to some lessons which can be drawn from the experiences of dealing with the pandemic crisis so far.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. Inequality, Lockdown, and COVID-19: Unequal Societies Struggle to Contain the Virus

Author:
Paul von Chamier
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
There is nothing equal about COVID-19. It is now well established that poor and underprivileged social groups have absorbed most of the pandemic’s negative impact. However, the connection between COVID-19 and inequality might run even deeper. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, one additional point of the Gini coefficient correlated with a 1.34 percentage point higher rate of weekly new infections across countries. This difference in infection rates compounds like interest every week. This means that after twenty-one weeks of the pandemic, just one additional Gini å correlates with an approximately 1/3 higher overall number of cases in a country. More equal countries might enjoy an “equality dividend” that is associated with more shock resilience during the ongoing crisis. This new research from CIC sought to understand if pre-existing systemic inequities could be linked to higher COVID-19 infection rates, examining infection rates in 70 countries from mid-March 2020 through early August 2020, or what is widely seen as the first 21 weeks of the pandemic. It also studied these nations’ levels of inequality and other potential predictive variables: government efficiency (a measure indicating quality of public services and civil service capability), urban population share, share of the population over the age of 65, lockdown measures (calculated by stringency), and geographic mobility (a population’s physical movements as measured by Google’s COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports). The study tracked inequality by using the “Gini Coefficient,” a commonly used metric for measuring income inequality within nations--or, specifically, how far a country’s wealth or income distribution deviates from a completely equal distribution. Under this calculation, the higher the coefficient, the greater the income inequality within that country.
Topic:
Inequality, Resilience, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Society
Political Geography:
Global Focus

17. Lessons for the Age of Consequences: COVID-19 and the Macroeconomy

Author:
Servaas Storm
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Based on comparative empirical evidence for 22 major OECD countries, I argue that country differences in cumulative mortality impacts of SARS-CoV-2 are largely caused by: (1) weaknesses in public health competence by country; (2) pre-existing country-wise variations in structural socio-economic and public health vulnerabilities; and (3) the presence of fiscal constraints. The paper argues that these pre-existing conditions, all favorable to the coronavirus, have been created, and amplified, by four decades of neoliberal macroeconomic policies – in particular by (a) the deadly emphasis on fiscal austerity (which diminished public health capacities, damaged public health and deepened inequalities and vulnerabilities); (b) the obsessive belief of macroeconomists in a trade-off between ‘efficiency’ and ‘equity’, which is mostly used to erroneously justify rampant inequality; (c) the complicit endorsement by mainstream macro of the unchecked power over monetary and fiscal policy-making of global finance and the rentier class; and (d) the unhealthy aversion of mainstream macro (and MMT) to raising taxes, which deceives the public about the necessity to raise taxes to counter the excessive liquidity preference of the rentiers and to realign the interests of finance and of the real economy. The paper concludes by outlining a few lessons for a saner macroeconomics.
Topic:
Global Recession, Economic Inequality, Macroeconomics, Austerity, Public Health, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Public Spending
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. Learning from COVID-19: How to make care central to economic policy around the world

Author:
Ruth Pearson and Eva Neitzert
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
After decades of neglect, the COVID-19 pandemic has made visible the vital role that the care economy plays in the functioning of economies and societies—and highlighted the deep crisis at the heart of it. Care recipients and providers of care have been on the COVID-19 frontlines, and the ability of governments to mount an effective response to the pandemic has been hampered by decades of policies that undervalued and neglected the care economy.
Topic:
Economic Policy, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. International Society and Its Institutions in Refugee Protection during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Revisiting the Solidarism/Pluralism Debate in English School

Author:
Nihal Eminoglu, K. Onur Unutulmaz, and M. Gokay Ozerim
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This study aims at discussing the vulnerability of the Global Refugee Protection Regime (GRPR) during crises by applying the ‘international society’ concept within the English School of International Relations theory to the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyze the efficiency of the international society institutions on GRPR through the policies and practices of states as well as organizations such as the United Nations, European Union and Council of Europe. The GRPR has been selected because the ‘vulnerability’ of this regime has become a matter of academic and political debate as much as the vulnerability of those persons in need of international protection, specifically during times of crisis. Our analysis reveals that GRPR-centric practices and policies by the institutions of international society during the first four months afte
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Law, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. Dividing up Covid-19 vaccine: distribution based on countries’ weight

Author:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abstract:
Ending the coronavirus pandemic is not only about the technical issue of vaccine development. The challenge is multidimensional, involving a global proprietary pharmaceutical system and an exclusive, nationalist tendency in wealthy, prosperous states.
Topic:
Nationalism, Vaccine, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Pharmaceuticals
Political Geography:
Global Focus

21. COVID-19 and Conservation: Crisis Response Strategies that Benefit People and Nature

Author:
Ina Lehmann, César Rodríguez Garavito, and Anna Spenceley
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global human health crisis that is deeply intertwined with the global biodiversity crisis. It originated when a zoonotic virus spilled over from wild animals to humans. Viruses can spread easily in disturbed ecosystems, and with increasing contact between humans and wildlife the risk of contagion grows. Conservation is crucial to reduce the risks of future pandemics, but the current pandemic also impacts on conservation in many ways. In this Briefing Paper we suggest strategies to alleviate the pandemic’s adverse effects on conservation in the Global South. Many zoonoses originate there, and livelihoods are strongly dependent on natural resources. The paper considers the pandemic’s overarching economic implica-tions for protected and other conserved areas, and specific ramifications for the tourism and wildlife trade sectors, which are closely related to these areas. As economies shrink, natural resources come under pressure from various sides. Financial resources are reallocated from the conservation to the health sector, countries decrease environmental protection standards to boost economic recovery, and poor people in rural regions resort to protected wild resources as a subsistence strategy. Together, these trends speed up the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services and create supportive conditions for the emergence of zoonotic disease and the undermining of livelihoods.
Topic:
Environment, Natural Resources, Nature, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. 2020 Sudikoff Interdisciplinary Seminar on Genocide Prevention: Rapporteur's Report

Author:
Alex Vandermaas-Peeler
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
On June 10, 2020, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum brought together scholars, practitioners, and civil society representatives to discuss possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global risk of mass atrocities and efficacy of mass atrocity prevention. This seminar was the first in a series designed to stimulate new policy-relevant research and begin building a network of scholars and practitioners focused on global trends and their implications for mass atrocities and atrocity prevention. Future seminar series topics include the global distribution of power, new technologies, demographics, climate change, and resource competition, and norms and ideologies. This rapporteur’s report summarizes major observations raised during the workshop.
Topic:
Genocide, Risk, Atrocities, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Atrocity Prevention
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. COVID-19 has a postcode: How urban housing and spatial inequality are shaping the COVID-19 crisis

Author:
Jeni Klugman and Matthew Moore
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
COVID-19 has underlined that spatial inequality is relevant—and costly—everywhere: not only in developing countries. The pandemic has exposed sharp inequalities in prosperous cities, such as New York and San Francisco, as well as in slums and informal settlements in developing countries such as Kenya and Iran. For an estimated 1.4 billion people living in informal settlements, home is crowded, inadequate, and unsafe. In the words of one observer, “[w]ith COVID-19, we are all in the same storm. We are not all in the same boat.” This paper presents the results of a rapid appraisal carried out in May 2020. It surveys how existing urban inequalities have played out in practice, how spatial inequality has shaped the repercussions of COVID-19, and how housing-related program and community responses have helped close—or exacerbated—these gaps. It also outlines the opportunities and prospects for longer term reforms. While data and empirical analysis are still nascent, academic, government, and civil society groups, as well as news outlets, have quickly ramped up efforts to document and study the pandemic and its numerous effects. We assess emerging evidence about how the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts reflect residential segregation, including how they differentially affect renters, people who live in informal settlements, and the homeless. The COVID-19 crisis calls for rapid and innovative responses to address strains on lives and livelihoods. Our review identifies many promising emergency responses—from temporary eviction moratoria to cash transfer programs—aimed at mitigating COVID-19’s immediate impact.
Topic:
Inequality, Fragile States, Crisis Management, Cities, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

24. Global Health Security and Pandemics: Why didn't we know this was coming?

Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
This video is the first in a series on global health security and pandemics, presented by Professor Sophie Harman (QMUL). In this episode, she will explore whether we should have seen the current global health crisis coming
Topic:
Security, Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

25. The U.S. Government Was Not Adequately Prepared for Coronavirus at Home or Abroad

Author:
Jimmy Kolker
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
: After retiring from the Foreign Service in 2007, Ambassador Kolker spent four years at UNICEF before moving to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs there, he dealt with a number of international health concerns, including Ebola, Zika, and HIV/AIDS. This piece is adapted from his Virtual Presentation to an online DACOR audience on April 8, 2020. While the Coronavirus outbreak and pandemic found nearly all countries unprepared, U.S. lapses in addressing major documented flaws in our preparedness contributed to breakdowns of international collaboration and solidarity as well as institutional conflicts and stress on our health system at home.
Topic:
Government, International Cooperation, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

26. What a Pandemic Reveals: Health Inequalities and Their Reflection on Policies

Author:
Özge Karadağ Çaman and Selma Karabey
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
The relationship of human health with social and the environmental factors has long been among the issues that have been dwelled on especially since the beginning of the 19th century. The field of medicine springing from these studies is known as “Social Medicine”. Although developments in pathology and microbiology caused the importance of social factors in the etiology of diseases to be set aside at the end of the 19th century, social medicine has acquired its currency again in later years. Indeed today, we need to read and understand the principles of social medicine more than ever.
Topic:
Health, Inequality, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

27. Coronavirus: Political Philosophy

Author:
A. Shchipkov
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
THE CRISIS caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. Yesterday, we were living under the slogan, “Live as friends in a society without borders”; today, we are advised “to remain home and avoid con- tacts.” Each country is for itself. The slogan, “Less state and more mar- ket” has been pushed aside: anyone and everyone asks the state for help and protection. Yesterday, medicine was optimized to earn money; today, the sacred principle of profit has tumbled down. In January, hospitals were closed; today, new hospitals are being built. On the other hand, not all consequences of the pandemic are clear; we have not yet reached its end to verify the information collected about immunity, vaccines and virus mutations. We can only guess whether the pandemic happens only once or will regularly repeat itself. Today, the economy lives amid deep-cutting changes imposed by the pandemic. Promptly ended, they will be nothing more than temporary changes; if they continue for many years, they will change the very foundations of the economic, social and political systems. Overlaid on the other symp- toms of a world crisis (including a financial crisis), the pandemic created a synergetic effect. Time has come to assess possible results.
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

28. Two Superpandemics for One Humanity Is Too Many!

Author:
A. Krutskikh
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
Interview woth Andrei Krutskikh, Special Representative of the Russian President on International Cooperation in the Field of Information Security, Director of the Department of International Information Security at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
Topic:
Cybersecurity, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

29. Epidemics and Pandemics as Transnational Issues: The Challenge of the Novel Coronavirus

Author:
Robert Kim-Farley and Lauren Dunning
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The first recorded pandemic occurred during the Peloponnesian War in 430 B.C. Suspected to be due to typhoid fever, the pandemic contributed to the Spartan victory over the Athenians. Since then, infectious diseases have had a significant impact on the course of human history. The explosive outbreak of the new novel coronavirus, COVID-19, was first identified in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province in the People’s Republic of China. The outbreak is again challenging the global community, its governance structures, and its mechanisms for international collaboration. Many key data points critical to fully characterizing the disease epidemiology of COVID-19—including transmissibility, potential for asymptomatic spread, and risk factors for severe illness or death—are still emerging; as a result, a collective global response under strong World Health Organization (WHO) leadership, followed by subsequent nation-level implementation, is vital to ensuring the good of the many is not sacrificed for the good of the few. COVID-19 is in the same family as the coronavirus of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the spread of which in 2002-2003 caused the first pandemic of the twenty-first century. It prompted the creation of an ad-hoc Emergency Committee (EC) composed of international experts convened under the International Health Regulations (IHR) that inform the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General. The IHR, which were last revised in 2005 following the SARS outbreak and subsequent calls for reform, obligate 196 state parties, including all WHO member states, to broadly work together to enhance global health security.
Topic:
Governance, Multilateralism, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

30. Covid-19: Urgent Responses

Author:
Petra Rethmann
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
In the space of just a few weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has radically transformed the lives of people around the globe. Apart from devastating health consequences for people directly affected by the virus, the COVID-19 pandemic has had major implications for the way people live and work, socialize and love, and make personal, political, and economic decisions. The elbow bump has replaced the handshake. Privately owned communications technologies such as Zoom and Skype have become media of necessity, not of choice. Unemployment is at record levels, the low-wage sector is growing, and short-term work and precariousness is on the rise. The downward mobility trend (Nachtwey 2016) that has been underway in, among others, Western capitalist states for a while, continues to cement itself. Fears of social and personal decline are growing. All of this, and more, harbors the danger of increasing polarizations, (re)producing old and new figures of enmity, hate, and blame. The pandemic has inflicted a level of pain that is deep. War metaphors have been and are being bandied around, enlisting us in a fight in which supposedly we are all together. But as the papers included in this collection show, this “we” is not harmonious, uniform, or even. It cracks across fault lines of poverty, gender, and race. Data from a variety of reliable sources show that African Americans, who suffer disproportionally from poverty, inadequate housing, limited access to good health care, and chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension, are dying from COVID-19 at horrific rates. In the banlieues and cités (public housing complexes) of France food-price spikes have triggered hunger riots. While many of us have had (and have) the privilege to work from home, others, including warehouse packers and front-line workers, have been exposed to deadly hazards at work. Domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence has increased, and stay-at-home measures have exposed women and children who live with violent men to great danger. Restrictions that translate into national-security policies have ramped up anti-migrant sentiments. And across Canada, as well as in other places, people in local nursing homes, seniors’ residences, and single-parent households are disproportionally affected and suffer. Indeed, it appears as if the very fabrics of the social, whatever they were before, are at stake.
Topic:
Digital Economy, Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

31. Covid-19: Urgent Responses

Author:
Petra Rethmann
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University
Abstract:
In May 2020 the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition published a Working Paper entitled COVID-19: Urgent Responses. The paper produced by James Gibbs, Luseadra McKerracher, and Jessica Fields is part of this series. Together, then, the COVID-19: Urgent Responses includes ten exciting paper that also stand as a testimony to the challenges faced by many of us in these times.
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

32. Global Health Security – COVID-19: Health Pandemic to Food Crisis?

Author:
Luis Montesclaros
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
While engaging in hoarding behaviour at the national level may seem like a strategic move in response to household hoarding amid disruptions in trade, doing so can potentially trigger a repeat of the 2007-08 food crisis.
Topic:
Security, Health, Food, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

33. Global Health Security – COVID-19 and School Closures: Why Education Sector Needs Protecting

Author:
Tamara Nair
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Around 90 percent of the world’s students are currently out of school as a result of the global pandemic. How prepared are we to face the fallout of having schools closed for this long?
Topic:
Education, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Labor Rights
Political Geography:
Global Focus

34. ASEAN Response: Pushing Back Vaccine Nationalism

Author:
Mely Caballero-Anthony
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
As ASEAN economic ministers meet virtually this week to deal with, among other things, the severe impacts of COVID-19, their crucial task should be to strengthen multilateral cooperation. ASEAN should rally its dialogue partners and the private sector to make vaccines available to all. Can ASEAN centrality help push back the worrying trend of vaccine nationalism?
Topic:
Vaccine, ASEAN, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Asia and Global Focus

35. COVID-19: Private Sector’s Role in Times of Crisis

Author:
Christopher Chen
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
While people usually rely on the state in times of crisis, the scale and significance of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates a more inclusive global response. Can the private sector step in to fill existing gaps in the current response?
Topic:
Crisis Management, Private Sector, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

36. Eight Heads of States versus Coronavirus: A Leadership Comparative Question – Part 2

Author:
Mohammed Cherkaoui
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Al Jazeera Center for Studies
Abstract:
It seems to be a three-way failure of leadership, national public policies, as well as international institutions, and should not be overshadowed by mere crisis management. By April 12, the infection cases escalated to 1,781,383 with 108,864 deaths worldwide.
Topic:
Government, Crisis Management, Coronavirus, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

37. Tracking COVID-19 in the Age of AI and Tech Wars

Author:
June Park
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
June Park, political economist at the National Research Foundation of Korea, explains that “even the like-minded countries of GPAI have revealed their differences and institutional variance in deploying digital technology to fight COVID-19 at a time of grave national emergency and public health crisis.”
Topic:
Science and Technology, Crisis Management, Trade, Artificial Intelligence, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Asia and Global Focus

38. Medical Tourism in the Time of COVID-19

Author:
Binhan Oğuz, Godfrey Gordon, and Henry H. Cruz
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center (GPoT)
Abstract:
With subsidence of the Covid-19 pandemic to medically acceptable levels, international coordination of health and safety protocols, once agreed and implemented, will be the critical first step to the next phase to the opening of international tourism, more likely well into 2021, and unlikely to be a robust one, if travel is restricted to any agreed ‘quarantine-free corridors. Then there remains the issue of social (physical) distancing and wearing protective masks at airports and onboard planes, and expectation that at destination countries agreed protocols will be respected. One major challenge to medical tourism for the immediate future is travel by the elderly and other vulnerable individuals, for whom travel restrictions may be more stringent.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Tourism, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

39. Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons From COVID-19

Author:
Thomas J. Bollyky and Stewart M. Patrick
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The United States and the world were caught unprepared by the COVID-19 pandemic despite decades of warnings of the threat of global pandemics and years of international planning. The failure to adequately fund and execute these plans has exacted a heavy human and economic price. Hundreds of thousands of lives have already been lost, and the global economy is in the midst of a painful contraction. The crisis—the greatest international public health emergency in more than a century—is not over. It is not too early, however, to begin distilling lessons from this painful experience so that the United States and the world are better positioned to cope with potential future waves of the current pandemic and to avoid disaster when the next one strikes, which it surely will. This CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force report seeks to do just that, framing pandemic disease as a stark threat to global and national security that neither the United States nor the world can afford to ignore again. It argues that future pandemic threats are inevitable and possibly imminent; policymakers should prepare for them and identify what has gone wrong in the U.S. and multilateral response. One of the most important lessons of this pandemic is that preparation and early execution are essential for detecting, containing, and rapidly responding to and mitigating the spread of potentially dangerous emerging infectious diseases. As harmful as this coronavirus has been, a novel influenza could be even worse, transmitting even more easily, killing millions more people, and doing even more damage to societies and economies alike. This Task Force proposes a robust strategy consisting of critical institutional reforms and policy innovations to help the United States and the world perform better. Although there is no substitute for effective political leadership, The recommendations proposed here would if implemented place the nation and the world on a firmer footing to confront humanity’s next microbial foe. The Task Force presents its findings grouped into three sections: the inevitability of pandemics and the logic of preparedness; an assessment of the global response to COVID-19, including the performance of the World Health Organization (WHO), multilateral forums, and the main international legal agreement governing pandemic disease; and the performance of the United States, while also drawing lessons from other countries, including several whose outcomes contrast favorably with the U.S. experience.
Topic:
International Cooperation, World Health Organization, Pandemic, COVID-19, Health Crisis, and Global Health
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. Food Security in Times of Crisis: Poor Developing Countries are Different

Author:
Michael Brüntrup
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
Until now, the Corona crisis is mainly fought through lockdown measures. In more wealthy countries, these have barely an immediate effect on food security. In poor countries, the situation is different: There, these measures threaten people immediately. The text discusses issues and consequences.
Topic:
Development, Poverty, Food Security, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

41. Improving Global Health Supply Chains through Traceability

Author:
Michael Pisa and Denise McCurdy
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In many low- and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) where disease burdens are highest, health supply chains function poorly, resulting in frequent stockouts and a high prevalence of substandard and even falsified medications. In response to these concerns, the global health initiatives have stepped up their efforts to improve supply chain management. At the same time, a growing number of rich country pharmaceutical companies are investing in digital technologies that help them “track and trace” the movement of medicines through the supply chain at the package-level. Drawing from interviews with over thirty experts, we find that traceability offers a realistic solution to some of the problems found in LMIC health supply chains but that implementing the approach is a huge logistical endeavor that requires a strong political commitment. We close by discussing how donors can support committed governments, by taking an evidence-based approach to determine what traceability methods work best.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Health Crisis, Pharmaceuticals, and Tracing
Political Geography:
Global Focus

42. Imagining the Alternative Worlds of 2030: Policy Implications for the Future of Global Health Procurement

Author:
Janeen Madam Keller and William Savedoff
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
The availability and affordability of health products—medicines, diagnostics, devices, and equipment—are critical to achieving universal health coverage and improving health outcomes. Yet low- and middle-income countries face multiple challenges in procuring health products related to institutional inefficiencies, market failure, and fragmented demand. At the same time, the world is evolving rapidly in ways that will affect health procurement, from changes in countries’ eligibility for foreign assistance to advances in information technologies. Looking forward, efforts to improve global health procurement must proactively address the sweeping changes on the horizon. Drawing on a range of political, economic, and social trends, this paper envisions how the global landscape might change between now and 2030, with a focus on the implications for global health, particularly the procurement of health products. The paper develops three possible but distinct futures—worlds characterized as atomistic, privately led, or multilateral.It concludes by describing the policy options and locus of action to improve global health procurement in light of these scenarios, emphasizing three areas of work: financing and modes of collaboration, procurement procedures and tools, and procurement capacity.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Public Health, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

43. Fragile States Index 2015 – Annual Report

Author:
J. J. Messner, Nate Haken, Patricia Taft, Kendall Lawrence, Felipe Umana, Sebastian Pavlou, and Hannah Blyth
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Fund for Peace
Abstract:
The Fragile States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure. By highlighting pertinent issues in weak and failing states, The Fragile States Index—and the social science framework and software application upon which it is built—makes political risk assessment and early warning of conflict accessible to policy-makers and the public at large.
Topic:
Reform, Ebola, Democracy, Fragile States, Domestic Politics, Sustainability, Health Crisis, Instability, and Uprising
Political Geography:
Africa, Russia, Iran, Ukraine, Middle East, Finland, Eastern Europe, Greece, Libya, Cuba, North Africa, Lebanon, West Africa, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Global Focus, and United States of America