Opinion Pieces

This section provides a curated list of opinion pieces on Covid-19, policies and programs to deal with it, and the implications for different groups in LIC’s. The materials will be updated weekly.  

Policies and programs 

• The Economic Impact of COVID-19 in Low- and Middle-Income Countries by David Evans and Mead Over
• Responding to COVID-19 in the Developing World by Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak  
• Africa’s response to the pandemic by David Pilling 
• How can we best protect the most vulnerable in the developing world during the COVID-19 pandemic? a VoxDev interview with Reema Hanna and Benjamin Olken 
• In South Africa, Child Support Grant proves to be more effective than Unemployment Insurance in providing relief to COVID-affected workers and their families. 
• This research was effective in influencing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of expanded Child Support Grants as part of the country’s COVID response. 
• Policy brief on Labor Markets of Latin America and the Caribbean in The Face of The Impact of COVID-19 by Arboleda, Oscar; Baptista, Dulce; González-Velosa, Carolina; Novella, Rafael; Rosas-Shady, David; Silva Porto, María Teresa; Soler, Nicolás 
• Policy brief on protecting sexual and reproductive health and rights, and promoting gender equality by United Nations Population Fund
• Saving Africa’s private-sector jobs during the coronavirus pandemic by San Bilal, Stephany Griffith-Jones, Sony Kapoor, Stephen Karingi, Vera Songwe, and Dirk Willem te Velde 
• The economic impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in sub-Saharan Africa by Matthieu Teachout and Celine Zipfel 
• Why do health labour market forces matter? By Barbara McPake, Akiko Maeda, Edson Correia Araújo, Christophe Lemiere, Atef El Maghraby, and Giorgio Cometto, World Health Organization (WHO)
• Technology must be part of the recovery, but it isn’t the solution. With millions facing unemployment, we need to get people into better, more fulfilling, and sustainable work, writes Heather Rolfe 
• The Special Report on the evolution and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America by  the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) 
• The COVID-19 Crisis and Fiscal Reform in Low-Income Countries by Sanjeev Gupta  and Jianhong Liu 
• LMICs will face ‘extreme strain’ on health systems despite younger populations by Stephen Johns, Dr Sabine L. van Elsland
  
• Evidence-Based Decision Making During COVID-19: How to Navigate Extreme Uncertainty and Urgency by Ranil Dissanayake
  
• Enhancing Resilience in African Economies: Policy Responses to the COVID19 Pandemic in Africa by Folashadé Soulé and Camilla Toulmin
  
• Covid-19, Poverty, and Inequality: Growing inequality can worsen the pandemic’s effects by Mario Negre, Daniel Gerszon Mahler, and Christoph Lakner 
  
• Protecting Community Health Workers: PPE Needs and Recommendations for Policy Action by Lyudmila Nepomnyashchiy  , Carey Westgate  , Ashley Wang  , Helen Olsen  , Prashant Yadav  and Madeleine Ballard
• A working paper on COVID-19 Economic Impact and Recovery Framework by Microsoft
  
• Beyond Lockdown⁠—Sustainable COVID Control for Low-Income Countries by Peter Baker, Jeremy Konyndyk, Patrick Saez and Kalipso Chalkidou

Implications for labor  

• A blog post by on the effects of Covid19 on MSMEs by Radhika Pandey, and Amrita Pillai
• COVID-19 and the Egyptian economy: Estimating the impacts of expected reductions in tourism, Suez Canal revenues, and remittances by Clemens Breisinger, Abla Abdelatif, Mariam Raouf, and Manfred Wiebelt
• COVID-19 and the world of work, a special feature from the International Labour Organization (ILO)
• Bridging the skills gap for informal economy workers – How can skills and lifelong learning help mitigate the consequences of the crises? By  Christine Hofmann, the International Labour Organization 
• Covid-19—Pandemics and the labor market, a key topic from IZA World of Labor
• Covid-19’s Next Victims: Young Workers by Gad Levanon
• COVID-19: South Asia graduates face bleak job prospects by Shuriah Niazi, Dinesh De Alwis, and Shadi Khan Saif  
• Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on Myanmar’s economy: A Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) multiplier approach by Xinshen Diao, Nilar Aung, Wuit Yi Lwin, Phoo Pye Zone, Khin Maung Nyunt, and James Thurlow 
• Live-blog: How the Coronavirus affects garment workers in supply chains from Clean Clothes Campaign
• Youth or consequences: Put youth at the center of COVID-19 recovery by Patrick Fine, Susan Reichle, and Kristin M. Lord
  
• The Economic Impact of COVID-19: After Record Unemployment, Countries around the World Begin to Reopen Industries by David Evans and Amina Mendez Acosta
  
• Technology, jobs, and the future of work by James Manyika
• A report from World Economic Forum on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Future of Advanced Manufacturing and Production: Insights from the World Economic Forum’s Global Network of Advanced Manufacturing Hubs by Diego Andreis, Baris Arikan, Cynthia Hutchison, Nicole Kampe, Dong Sub Kim, Vibeke Kristiansen, and Saul Lustgarten
  
• Impacts of COVID-19 on supply chain workers in the electronics sector by Business and Human Right Centre
  
• Post COVID-19 labor market: Bangladesh eyes Africa from Inquirer
  South Africa needs to focus urgently on how COVID-19 will reshape its labour market by David Francis, Imraan Valodia, and Kamal Ramburuth-Hurt
  
• Policy Brief:  The World of Work and COVID-19 by United Nations 
  
• Protecting construction workers from coronavirus by Cindy Bryson, Haidy Ear-Dupuy, Jean Williams
  
• Policy responses to COVID-19: no worker should be left behind, a policy brief from OECD by Maria Chiara Cavalleri and Orsetta Causa

Gender 

• COVID-19 and gender equality, a webpage aims to raise awareness about some of the gendered impacts that Covid-19 is having on our society. 
• Reaching India’s poorest women with COVID-19 relief –  Rohini Pande, Simone Schaner, Charity Troyer Moore, and Elena Stacy
• Bangladeshi women play crucial role in fight against COVID-19 by Sajeda Amin
• COVID-19 and domestic violence: Caring states? by Soheln Nazneen
• The Impact of COVID-19 on Gender Equality by Titan M. Alon, Matthias Doepke, Jane Olmstead-Rumsey, Michèle Tertilt: Summary & Full paper 
• How Will COVID-19 Affect Women and Girls in Low- and Middle-Income Countries? by David Evans: How Will COVID-19 Affect Women and Girls in Low- and Middle-Income Countries? 
• A blog post by Laura Sili explains the impact of the pandemic on women  
• A blog by Farzana Afridi and Nalini Gulati discusses new research studies with a ‘gendered’ light on some of the emerging issues around work and welfare
• A Gender Lens on COVID-19: Pandemics and Violence against Women and Children by Megan O’Donnell, Amber Peterman, and Alina Potts
• Matthias Doepke’s summary of a lecture on impact of COVID-19 on gender equality  
• How microeconomics can help devise evidence-based policy responses to COVID-19 by Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak 
• Gender dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic, a World Bank Policy Note
• The article on COVID-19 uniquely affects women. Here are many of the ways it does: The invisible coronavirus makes systemic gender inequalities and injustices visible by Liane Schalatek,  Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung 
• Labour market inequalities are exacerbated by COVID-19 by Naila Kabeer
• Gender-sensitive social protection: A critical component of the COVID-19 response in low- and middle-income countries by Melissa Hidrobo, Neha Kumar, Tia Palermo, Amber Peterman, and Shalini Roy, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
• The COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the care crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean from Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)   
• Women at the core of the fight against COVID-19 crisis by OECD
• Mapping of online articles on Covid-19 and Gender provided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• Policy brief on Violence Against Women Incorporating Behavioural Add-Ons Into Cash Transfer Programmes By Mahreen Mahmud
• COVID-19: Why gender matters, comments from the Overseas Development Institute’s researchers
• The World Bank’s resource for gender and COVID-19
• COVID-19 Resources: Gender Data, Gender, and Data from Data2X, United Nations Foundation
• Feminist resources on the pandemic provided by Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy
• Gender in post COVID-19 development policy: Looking through a feminist lens by Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
• Tracking the Gender Impact of COVID-19:  An Indicator Framework by Mayra Buvinic, Lorenz Noe, Eric Swanson 
• Industries post-COVID-19: A gender-responsive approach to global economic recovery by Cecila Ugaz Estrada, Müge Dolun, Carmen Schuber, and Nicolas Schmidt 
• Gender Data Series: Mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on women and girls Online event series by provided by DEVEX 
• The COVID-19 pandemic is linked to a ten percent increase in domestic violence cases across the country by Emily Leslie and Riley Wilson
  
• COVID-19 places extra burden on African women by Antonio Cascais
  Anti-corruption response to COVID-19 must include women, Transparency International and UN Women call for inclusive, transparent and corruption-free public policies across Latin America and the Caribbean
  
• Government responses to COVID-19 are exacerbating gender-based violence by Muthoni Muriithi, Oxfam Africa
• A report from Care International on Where are the women? The Conspicuous Absence of Women in COVID-19 Response Teams and Plans, and Why We Need Them
  
• Will COVID-19 Widen the Gender Justice Gap? By Sandie Okoro, and Paul Prettitore
  
• Labor Market: Women and Minorities Hit Hardest By COVID-19 Unemployment by Raghav Sigh 
  
• Covid-19: Gender Inequalities in the Labour Market: Three questions to Monika Queisser, Head of Social Policy Division at the OECD from Institut Montaigne
  
• Women’s Financial Resiliency as it Relates to COVID-19, materials crowd-sourced from the FinEquity community on the issue of women’s financial resiliency as it relates to COVID-19
  
• COVID-19: A backward step for gender equality by Stefania Fabrizio, Vivian Malta, Marina M. Tavares   
• Global Labor Justice publishes report on advancing gender justice in Asian fast-fashion supply chains in wake of covid-19 pandemic
  Opinion: Tackling the rise of violence against women during COVID-19 by Laura Kyrke Smith
  
• Challenges for the female academic during the COVID-19 pandemic by Brooke Peterson Gabster, Kimvan Daalen, Roopa Dhatt, MicheleBarry, from the Lancet
  
• What’s Really Behind the Gender Gap in Covid-19 Deaths? When in doubt, look to social factors first, not biology, by Heather Shattuck-Heidorn, Meredith W. Reiches and Sarah S. Richardson, Ms. Shattuck-Heidorn, Ms. Reiches and Ms. Richardson direct the GenderSci Lab at Harvard University, The New York Times
  
• How COVID-19 Worsens Gender Inequality in Nepal: The pandemic will worsen existing gaps in women’s education, income, and employment prospects by Luna K.C.
  
• COVID-19 and Violence against Women and Children: What Have We Learned So Far? By Amber Peterman, Megan O’Donnell, and Tia Palermo 
  
• Women leaders and coronavirus: look beyond stereotypes to find the secret to their success by Kate Maclean, the Conversation
  
• Gender Gaps in the Time of Covid-19 by Veronica Frisancho and Diego Vera-Cossio from Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
  
• Tackling gender justice and inequality during the time of COVID-19 and beyond by Mahnaz Lashkri, Oxfam in Iraq

Children and education 

• COVID-19 and inequality in Children’s Education by Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti 
• Economist article on how Closing schools for does lifelong harm and widens inequality  
• A special section with an interactive map for Education and COVID-19 from World Bank
• COVID-19: Exacerbating Educational Inequalities? By Orla Doyle 
• COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response, data and updates from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
• Coronavirus school closures impact 1.3 billion children – and remote learning is increasing inequality by Victoria Nash and Rebecca Eynon
• Children in monetary poor households and COVID-19: Technical note by Save the Children and UNICEF
• Child marriage worries rise amid coronavirus lockdown in Cameroon by Emeline Fonyuy
  
• Education is crucial to Africa’s COVID-19 response by Jean-Marc Bernard, Brahima Sangafowa Coulibaly, and Rebecca Winthrop
  
• COVID-19 risks driving more children into child labour by Fairtrade International 
  
• Violence Against Children Exacerbated By COVID-19 Lockdowns by Grace Ren, Health Policy Watch
  
• Policy Brief – COVID-19 & Urgent Need for Child-Sensitive Social Protection from World Vision International
  
• A rapid review of economic policy and social protection responses to health and economic crises and their effects on children: Lessons for the COVID-19 pandemic response from United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF

Refugees and migration

• An IGC blog by Camilla Sacchetto on Pandemics amidst fragilities 
• COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens, World bank Migration and Development Brief  
• Live blog: Refugees in the COVID-19 crisis from the UN Refugee Agency
• Migrants and the COVID-19 pandemic: An initial analysis from the International Organization for Migration (IOM)
• Migrant Remittances Will Plummet. Here Is What That Means for Global Development by Michael Clemens, Center for Global Development
• Working paper on Potential Responses to the COVID-19 Outbreak in Support of Migrant Workers by Harry Moroz, Maheshwor Shrestha, and Mauro Testaverde, World Bank Social Protection and Jobs Unit 
• The Overseas Development Institute’s interactive webpage on Migrant Contribution to the COVID-19 response
• How are refugees affected byCOVID-19? By Paul Spiegel, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, discussing the critical vulnerabilities of the pandemic
• Refugees are suffering from a “catastrophic” worldwide aid shortage by Max de Haldevang & Patrick deHahn 
• The Disproportionate Effect of COVID-19 on Migrant Workers in ASEAN by  Camille Bismonte
• Why working together on global migration is vital to pandemic recovery by Ian M. Kysel
• Refugees: the entrepreneurs that society must support by Ahmad Sufian Bayram
  
• Nepal faces a crisis as COVID-19 stems the flow of remittances by Ali Akram and Andrew Caruana Galizia
  
• What we can learn from refugees in the fight against COVID-19 by Filippo Grandi, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, (UNHCR)
• A report from United Nations Network in Migration on Enhancing Access to Services for Migrants in the Context of COVID-19 Preparedness, Prevention, and Response and Beyond
  
• Forced displacement during COVID-19: A crisis for refugees and host communities in developing countries by Axel van Trotsenburg, World Bank Managing Director of Operations