Generally, in Ethiopia the side effects of COVID-19 have been more serious than the health-related challenges caused by the virus itself. This encompasses political, economic, socio-cultural, and psycho-social harms as well as legal disruptions caused by the virus.
In Mombasa, Kenya, organizations have decided to work together to address various children’s issues in the advent of COVID-19. The Mombasa County Child Rights Network (MCRN) is composed of organizations working for and with children. As a network we are focusing on child protection as a major governance issue, and are enabling children to participate, speak out, and create messages on COVID-19 to the world.
The Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC) has been facilitating land and agrarian issues in Nepal and working with landless and smallholder peasants since 1994. CSRC published an article on the effects of COVID-19 on agriculture and on landless and smallholder groups.
At the local level many civic hospitals in Gohdra, India are only able to supply doctors and surgeons with PPE. Saheli fills the gap here, providing masks to nurses, cleaning staff, and other essential workers in these hospitals.
With women’s employment mostly at the bottom of the supply chain and informal sectors characterized by precariousness and lower wages, the COVID-19 pandemic is not gender-neutral. It, therefore, demands gender-sensitive responses and interventions by various actors.
Graduating students from Bishop’s University will now be eligible for the community leadership program along with those from the original four partner universities. The fellowship includes up to $40,000 in community project support.
Humans are hard-wired to focus on threats and problems. It’s an evolutionary survival mechanism that has served us well for thousands of years. When faced with a crisis, we usually react in one of three ways – fight, flight, or freeze. When faced with the unprecedented and existential threat of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s unsurprising that our threat-response mechanisms have gone into overdrive.
An expert in Inclusive Economies has begun sharing experiences of the Global South during the Covid-19 pandemic in a series of essays entitled Stories of Community Resilience and Entrepreneurship. Written by Coady Institute’s Yogesh Ghore, the essays examine innovative solutions being developed by Coady graduates, partners, and others in the Global South. Ghore has worked internationally supporting economic development in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, North America and the Caribbean.
As the world responds to the Covid-19 pandemic, a pressing and immediate issue is the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) for the front-line health workers who are working to save the lives of others. Facemasks are an essential part of the PPE. The answer is coming from an unusual and unexpected place: poor women, most of whom are living in the rural economy, and probably never heard of such masks before.
The current pandemic has caused significant disruptions in the supply chain of food across the world. The stories of community innovation in times of crisis, as highlighted here present an opportunity to look at the role of citizens in shaping their own development beyond the current crisis.