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21. The UN’s Pandemic Response: The Beginnings of a Real Global Plan?

Author:
Leah Zamore, Karina Gerlach, and Ben Oppenheim
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Describing the coronavirus pandemic as a “global health crisis unlike any in the 75-year history of the United Nations” the UN has in recent days called for the launch of a large-scale, coordinated, and comprehensive multilateral response to combat the virus and its attendant economic and social consequences. It has published a set of action plans that aim to avert the potentially catastrophic impact of the virus, especially on the world’s most vulnerable and impoverished communities.
Topic:
United Nations, Governance, Multilateralism, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. Population Movements, COVID-19, and Conflict Risk

Author:
Sarah Cliffe, Leah Zamore, and Nendirmwa Noel
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across the globe, people are also moving in response to the threat of the virus and the actions states have taken to stem its transmission. This memo examines population movements in pandemics and offers relevant policy recommendations. In this policy memo, Sarah Cliffe, Leah Zamore, and Nendirmwa Noel detail the history of population movements during pandemics, provide an overview of the internal and cross-border movements now taking place around the world, and give examples of the restrictions and other measures governments are implementing to to respond. They also supply a number of concrete policy recommendations goverments can take now to improve their management of internal and cross-border movement in the face of COVID-19.
Topic:
Governance, Conflict, Borders, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. COVID-19 and Community Responses

Author:
Scott Guggenheim
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
This policy briefing examines how governments, multilateral organizations, and international financial institutions can leverage existing and new community-based responses to deal more effectively with the health, social, and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Governments around the world are stretched to their limits trying to cope with not just the health risks of the COVID-19 virus, but also the economic fallout as people lose their jobs and entire sections of the economy close down. In this policy briefing, Pathfinders adviser Scott Guggenheim argues that governments must harness an underutilized but highly effective tool—traditional community solidarity and volunteerism.
Topic:
Governance, Food Security, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

24. COVID-19 and the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings

Author:
Sarah Cliffe
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank conducted their first virtual Spring Meetings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This briefing summarizes the discussions, which focused on the economic impact of the pandemic, and provides key takeaways on topics such as debt relief, financing for COVID-19 response, multilateral partnerships, and efforts to support global supply chains. In this readout of the 2020 Spring Meetings, CIC director Sarah Cliffe details the historic—but ring-fenced—debt moratorium and accelerated financing deal that were reached, as well as efforts to inject more global financing through an exceptional issue of IMF Special Drawing Rights. The briefing also covers partnerships between the United Nations and the international financial institutions, including a call for collaboration on global supply chains for medical equipment, agricultural inputs, and other goods and services.
Topic:
Governance, Finance, Multilateralism, Crisis Management, Humanitarian Crisis, IMF, COVID-19, and Supply
Political Geography:
Global Focus

25. Last Refuge or Last Hour? COVID-19 and the Humanitarian Crisis in Idlib

Author:
Leah Zamore and Tayseer Alkarim
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
The humanitarian crisis in northern Syria is on the verge of becoming a COVID-19 catastrophe. A decade of conflict has left the healthcare system in ruins—and millions of displaced people in Idlib province were already suffering due to a lack of shelter and sanitation. Now, with the coronavirus pandemic posed to spread to an area with just 600 doctors and fewer than 50 adult ventilators for four million people, the situation is dire. Why is Idlib the last refuge for internally displaced Syrians, and what can donors, international humanitarian actors, and local organizations do to ensure that they are not left behind as the world grapples with COVID-19? This policy briefing by Tayseer Alkarim, Hanny Megally, and Leah Zamore delves into roots of the humanitarian crisis in Idlib, details the current capacity of the exhausted healthcare system amid the ongoing conflict, and examines what these constraints mean for mounting a response to the spread of the coronavirus. The briefing explains how donors and international humanitarian organizations can take action now to support local institutions, increase testing and treatment capacity, improve availability of PPE and public information, and press for an immediate ceasefire. The plight of Idlib is one of the most complex humanitarian dilemmas of our time, influenced by prolonged conflict, a looming COVID-19 outbreak, and the ongoing failure of the international community to take effective action. A further failure to minimize the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Idlib will cost lives—and risk global health security further by allowing the virus to spread in one of the places that is least-equipped to contain it.
Topic:
Health, Conflict, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East, Syria, and Idlib

26. Coping with COVID-19 and Conflict in Afghanistan

Author:
Said Sabir Ibrahimi
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Afghanistan faces many hurdles in coping with the COVID-19 pandemic: a prolonged armed conflict, a lack of social protection systems, limited healthcare capacity, and insufficient preparedness and coordination mechanisms. The Afghan government has developed a response plan and secured aid from international donors, but effective implementation remains challenging. This briefing by Said Sabir Ibrahimi and Dr. Naqibullah Safi provides an overview of the current state of the COVID-19 response in Afghanistan against the background of the ongoing conflict. It also details the additional challenges that hamper Afghanistan’s ability to deal with the crisis and provides recommendations for mitigating them.
Topic:
Foreign Aid, Conflict, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and South Asia

27. Gone Without a Trace: Syria's Detained, Abducted, and Forcibly Disappeared

Author:
Hanny Megally and Elena Naughton
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
Tens of thousands of people have been unlawfully detained by the Syrian government and other parties to the conflict in Syria. In most cases, their fate—and if they are alive, their whereabouts—remains unknown. Many families have been waiting for word of their spouses, children, and other relatives since mass protests first began in 2011. This situation is adversely affecting not only Syrians inside the country—including over 6.5 million who are internally displaced—but also many of the 5.6 million refugees who are likewise desperately seeking answers about family members from abroad. This joint report from the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) recommends a set of urgent steps that should be taken to assist families in obtaining information about the whereabouts of their loved ones, gaining access to them, and achieving their prompt release. Authored by CIC's Hanny Megally and ICTJ's Elena Naughton, the report details the scope of the detention crisis and argues that answers and coordinated action are needed now. Time is of the essence, as the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be accelerating in Syria, putting those detained in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons at further risk. Any meaningful progress toward a political agreement in Syria will be dependent on more than a negotiated ceasefire or reduction in violence and urgent access to humanitarian assistance. There will be little or no possibility of lasting peace without addressing critical issues, like the question of the missing, detained, abducted, and forcibly disappeared.
Topic:
Prisons/Penal Systems, Syrian War, Crimes Against Humanity, Humanitarian Crisis, and State Abuse
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

28. Adopting a Sustaining Peace Lens to the COVID-19 Response

Author:
Céline Monnier
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation
Abstract:
COVID-19 is creating a series of crises that increase the risk of conflict worldwide. Beyond the health impact, issues like worsening inequality, food insecurity, human rights abuses, and political tensions can deepen pre-existing social fractures in any country, creating additional layers of grievance. Addressing these risks early on and building resilience to them is key to preventing the potential for violence. But the pandemic also brings new opportunities for peacebuilding. A system-wide implementation of the sustaining peace approach is critical to ensure that United Nations response contributes to decreasing risks for violent conflict in the longer term—including efforts to “build back better.” This report draws on interviews with 25+ individuals across the UN system and member states to highlight some of the key challenges for peacebuilding in the immediate COVID-19 period as well as in the longer term. The report documents how entities across the UN have made positive steps toward implementing a sustaining peace approach, and provides recommendations for deepening these gains across the system.
Topic:
Human Rights, Inequality, Peace, Humanitarian Crisis, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

29. State(s) of Negotiation: Drivers of Forced Migration Governance in Most of the World

Author:
Lea Muller-Funk, Christiane Frohlich, and André Bank
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Between normative aspirations and national interests, forced migrants often become pawns in host states’ negotiations with internal and external actors. Focusing on North Africa, the Middle East, and the Horn of Africa, this paper offers an analytical framework to better understand forced migration governance across space and time from a more global, pluralist perspective in a logic of iterative theory-building. We hypothesise that some drivers of forced migration governance are distinct from drivers of migration governance – for example, global policy and conceptions of humanitarian norms and principles play a larger role in the former. We hypothesise that while forced migration governance is negotiated around humanitarian principles, in which international actors, externalisation, and civil society play a crucial role, it also functions as a regime strategy and is driven by certain characteristics of forced migrant groups, including size and perceived identity proximity. Finally, forced migration governance is characterised by strong path dependency.
Topic:
Migration, Governance, Displacement, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

30. What To Do about Idlib

Author:
Adam Garfinkle
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:
Sadness and tragedy come in many forms. One form consists in knowing how to solve a problem in theory, but realizing at the same time that what that would take in practice is not available. That is the case now with the tragedy unfolding in Idlib. There is a way to turn the crisis into an opportunity, but it would take wise and bold leaderships simultaneously in Washington, Jerusalem, Riyadh, Ankara, and the capitals of Europe. And that is precisely what we lack. What should be done? The U.S. government should privately propose, organize as necessary, and backstop as required a joint Israeli-Saudi intervention, coordinated with an on-going Turkish intervention, to save the million-plus refugees now facing imminent annihilation in Idlib Province, in Syria.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Military Intervention, Conflict, Syrian War, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Middle East, Syria, and Idlib