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2. From emergency to structure: ways to fight Covid-19 via international cooperation in health from Brazil
- Author:
- Andemar Pozzatti and Luiza Witzel Farias
- Publication Date:
- 03-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
- Institution:
- Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
- Abstract:
- This article argues the need for complementarity between emergency and structuring international cooperation in scenarios of health crises in developing countries. Through a review of contemporary literature and document analysis, it analyzes some aspects of the performance of global and Latin American institutions in the Covid-19 pandemic in light of this argument. It also makes a brief survey of forms of international cooperation that emerge from Brazil, with BRICS and Latin American partners, to fight the pandemic, which have a local and sectoral character: paradiplomacy, structuring networks and the role of local agents and health experts.
- Topic:
- International Cooperation, Public Health, Humanitarian Crisis, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and South America
3. How to be conflict sensitive in the midst of a pandemic? A case study on Colombia
- Author:
- Céline Monnier
- Publication Date:
- 07-2022
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center on International Cooperation
- Abstract:
- Efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 have led to a series of knock-on effects. Some measures have contributed to increased social conflict and violence. Understanding how to sustain peace, while implementing measures that had drastic psycho-socioeconomic impacts has been challenging for countries around the world. This policy brief looks at Colombia, a country with some success in the management of the pandemic, and highlights lessons learned on how the United Nations can support governments to be conflict sensitive when a country is hit by an external shock such as the COVID-19 crisis.
- Topic:
- United Nations, Conflict, Violence, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Colombia and South America
4. BRICS and Global Health Diplomacy in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Situating BRICS’ diplomacy within the prevailing global health governance context
- Author:
- Candice Moore
- Publication Date:
- 10-2022
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
- Institution:
- Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
- Abstract:
- BRICS have been cast as a bloc with the potential to make significant changes in Global Health. The management of the Covid-19 pandemic has shown divisions in the bloc and the limits of its ability to formulate policies or even act upon previously agreed positions. This paper employs an examination of BRICS Health Ministerial declarations and an analysis of power in International Relations to reflect on BRICS’ Global Health diplomacy during the Covid-19 pandemic, covering the key questions of vaccine research and development, vaccine nationalism, and travel bans. It finds that multiple dimensions of power matter in Global Health leadership.
- Topic:
- Health, International Cooperation, Governance, Pandemic, COVID-19, and BRICS
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Russia, China, Europe, India, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, and South America
5. Reimagining the Future of Human Rights: Social Justice, Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Global South
- Author:
- Jessica Corredor Villamil
- Publication Date:
- 06-2022
- Content Type:
- Book
- Institution:
- Dejusticia
- Abstract:
- This book is the collective effort of participants from the 2018 Global Action-Research Workshop for Young Human Rights Advocates, which Dejusticia has been organizing annually since 2013. These workshops aim to strengthen the abilities of young activists from the global South to achieve a greater impact in their human rights work and to reach a wider audience through new forms of narration. This book is just one of the many outcomes of the 2018 workshop. The talented and committed authors of this volume—all contributors to previous editions as well—hail from countries as diverse as Brazil, Ghana, Russia, and Venezuela. They came together again in 2018 to think about the intersection between research and activism and what it holds for the future of human rights. That is why our selection process for the 2018 workshop participants sought to ensure that two people from each cohort were working from a transnational perspective. The specific goal of this particular workshop was to reflect on the future of human rights, for we sensed that we were at a crossroads. With the recent rise in populist authoritarian governments, the global increase in inequality, and the worsening climate crisis, a number of thought leaders have wondered whether we have reached “the endtimes of human rights” (Hopgood 2013). We thus wished to use this workshop as an opportunity to respond to some of the most frequent criticisms of the efficacy and legitimacy of the human rights movement by drawing on historical and empirical arguments and responding to the reflections of Kathryn Sikkink—one of the workshop’s instructors—in her book Evidence for Hope (2017). Human rights defenders and activists are working in a world that is constantly changing. It’s a more multipolar world; powerful voices have emerged from the global South, which has reshaped the way that human rights work is being done across the globe. Furthermore, the Arab Spring and other social mobilizations that have since taken place have put the spotlight on civil society’s ability to act and its convening 12 Jessica Corredor-Villamil authority. Nonetheless, despite the fairly positive outlook for civil society participation and the emergence of new voices, it is necessary to review the strategies that we have been using thus far and explore how to make them more effective. This book is extremely relevant today, three years after the workshop, as we are living in a transformative time. The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented socioeconomic and political impacts, including increases in inequality, unemployment, states’ abuses of their emergency powers, and the concentration of presidential power. Moreover, social networks have played a critical role in the sociopolitical arena, not only in light of their capacity to massively mobilize but also due to their propensity to foster political polarization and the use of misinformation for political ends. Thus, although we face a different context from the one in 2018, this volume serves as a guide of sorts to help us reconsider the effectiveness of our strategies as a human rights movement as we look toward the challenges being posed by the third century of this decade. The contributors to this book question traditional methods and explore new ways and visions of advancing human rights in the troubled context in which we live. Do the struggles of small-scale miners in Ghana, the use of strategic litigation in Lebanon, and the recognition of the rights of nature in India represent evidence for hope? Or is the opposite true, and, as shown in the chapters on martial law in the Philippines, the treatment of wastewater in Argentina, and in the internal conflict in Yemen, human rights have failed to deliver on their promises?
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Water, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Social Justice, Surveillance, Indigenous, COVID-19, Armed Conflict, and Environmental Justice
- Political Geography:
- Africa, South Asia, Middle East, India, Argentina, Philippines, Yemen, South America, Hungary, Lebanon, Venezuela, Ghana, and Global South
6. An Integrated Epidemiological and Economic Model of COVID-19 NPIs in Argentina
- Author:
- Adolfo Rubinstein, Eduardo Levy-Yeyati, Alejandro López Osornio, Federico Filippini, and Adrian Santoro
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- We added a multi-sectoral economic framework to a SVEIR epidemiological model, combining the economic rationale of the DAEDALUS model with a detailed treatment of lockdown fatigue and declining compliance with Public Health and Social Measures reported in recent empirical work, to quantify the epidemic and economic benefits and costs of alternative lockdown and PHSM policies, both in terms of intensity and length. Our calibration replicates key features of the case and death-curves and economic cost for Argentina in 2021. The model allows us to quantify the short-term policy trade-off between lives and livelihoods and show that it can be significantly improved with targeted pharmaceutical policies such as vaccine rollout to reduce mainly severe disease and the death toll from COVID-19, as has been highlighted by previous studies.
- Topic:
- Economics, COVID-19, and Epidemiology
- Political Geography:
- Argentina, South America, and Latin America
7. China’s Improvised Mask Diplomacy in Chile
- Author:
- Urdinez. Francisco
- Publication Date:
- 04-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Abstract:
- During the pandemic, Chinese medical and equipment supplies to Chile have come mostly from a diverse cast of Chinese players with local experience in Chile. They adapted to Chile’s unique system of emergency and disaster management. China has become a global power, but there is too little debate about how this has happened and what it means. Many argue that China exports its developmental model and imposes it on other countries. But Chinese players also extend their influence by working through local actors and institutions while adapting and assimilating local and traditional forms, norms, and practices. With a generous multiyear grant from the Ford Foundation, Carnegie has launched an innovative body of research on Chinese engagement strategies in seven regions of the world—Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, the Pacific, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Through a mix of research and strategic convening, this project explores these complex dynamics, including the ways Chinese firms are adapting to local labor laws in Latin America, Chinese banks and funds are exploring traditional Islamic financial and credit products in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and Chinese actors are helping local workers upgrade their skills in Central Asia. These adaptive Chinese strategies that accommodate and work within local realities are mostly ignored by Western policymakers in particular. Ultimately, the project aims to significantly broaden understanding and debate about China’s role in the world and to generate innovative policy ideas. These could enable local players to better channel Chinese energies to support their societies and economies; provide lessons for Western engagement around the world, especially in developing countries; help China’s own policy community learn from the diversity of Chinese experience; and potentially reduce frictions.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Disaster Relief, Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, South America, and Chile
8. The Pandemic Strikes: Responding to Colombia’s Mass Protests
- Author:
- International Crisis Group
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- In Colombia’s history of protest, the 2021 mobilisations against inequality and police brutality stand out for their breadth and intensity. Unrest has quieted for now but could soon return. The government should urgently reform the security sector while working to narrow the country’s socio-economic chasms.
- Topic:
- Governance, Inequality, Protests, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Social Order
- Political Geography:
- Colombia and South America
9. Dynamics of insecurity and violence during the pandemic in Colombia/Dinámicas de la inseguridad y la violencia durante la pandemia en Colombia
- Author:
- Jerónimo Ríos and César Niño
- Publication Date:
- 05-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- The purpose of the following article is to present the main dynamics of criminal activities and violence produced by the armed conflict in Colombia during the pandemic caused by COVID-19. After a review of the most relevant literature produced in 2020, this study presents trends in criminal violence, lato sensu, and those associated with the internal armed conflict. The situation of paralysis that the confinement produced has not translated into a mitigation of the phenomenon of violence. Thus, the massacres and murders of social leaders, activists, human rights defenders or ex-guerrillas of the FARC-EP has remained constant if not increasing during this time. This must also be related to a context of difficulty added to a Peace Agreement signed with the FARC-EP in November 2016. This must also be related to a context of added difficulty to a Peace Agreement signed with the FARC-EP in November 2016, which, in addition to governmental resistance and non-compliance, is overcome by an increasingly intense violence, which hinders the prospects of a peace-building scenario in the country./El propósito del siguiente trabajo es el de presentar cuáles han sido las principales dinámicas de las actividades delictivas y de la violencia producida por el conflicto armado en Colombia durante la pandemia ocasionada por la COVID-19. Tras una revisión de la literatura más relevante producida en 2020, se presentan las tendencias de la violencia delictiva, lato sensu, y las asociadas con el conflicto armado interno. La situación de parálisis que produjo el confinamiento no se ha traducido en una mitigación del fenómeno de la violencia. Así, las masacres y asesinatos de líderes sociales, activistas, defensores de derechos humanos o exguerrilleros de las FARC-EP se ha mantenido constante cuando no creciente durante este tiempo. Ello debe relacionarse, además, con un contexto de dificultad añadida a un Acuerdo de Paz suscrito con las FARC-EP en noviembre 2016, que además de por las resistencias gubernamentales e incumplimientos, se encuentra superado por una geografía de la violencia cada vez más intensa, que aleja los visos de un escenario de construcción de paz en el país.
- Topic:
- Security, Violence, COVID-19, and Armed Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Colombia and South America
10. Statelessness and COVID-19
- Author:
- Jamie Liew
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Statelessness & Citizenship Review
- Institution:
- Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
- Abstract:
- Throughout the past year and a half, we have witnessed how no person or community on this planet has been untouched by COVID-19. There are countless reports about the differential experiences that various communities face in access to healthcare but also how some public health measures meant to stem its spread may actually be harming particular persons. The pandemic has put into sharp focus the inequities and the gaping fractures in societies all over the world. Moreover, the pandemic has made many realise that we cannot ignore the marginalised in our community given the interconnectedness of our existence. This issue’s critique and commentary part presents a snapshot of how some stateless persons are coping during the pandemic but also features the work of grassroots organisations and emerging researchers. We take a look at five stateless communities: the Rohingya in Bangladesh;1 LGBTQ+ undocumented in Brazil;2those seeking reproductive healthcare in Canada;3 the Bidoon in Kuwait;4 and the stateless in Sabah, Malaysia
- Topic:
- Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Stateless Population
- Political Geography:
- Bangladesh, Malaysia, Middle East, Canada, Asia, Kuwait, Brazil, South America, and North America
11. Surviving Overlapping Precarity in a 'Gigantic Hellhole' A Case Study of Venezuelan LGBTQI+ Asylum Seekers and Undocument Migrant in Brazil amid COVID-19
- Author:
- Yvonne Su, Tyler Valiquette, and Yuriko Cowper-Smith
- Publication Date:
- 07-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Statelessness & Citizenship Review
- Institution:
- Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Melbourne Law School
- Abstract:
- As COVID-19 infection rates grew exponentially in Latin America, countries closed their borders in an attempt to stop the virus. But such measures have put migrants, asylum seekers and other forcibly displaced persons at more risk. For highly precarious groups, such as Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers in Brazil, who were already facing a multitude of challenges before the pandemic, COVID-19 is multiplying the threats.
- Topic:
- LGBT+, Public Health, Asylum, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Stateless Population
- Political Geography:
- Brazil, South America, and Venezuela
12. CoronaShock and Education in Brazil: One and a Half Years Later
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 08-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- This dossier seeks to assess the effects of CoronaShock on education in Brazil, in particular how a mercantile logic advanced through the pandemic and how large corporations in the sector took advantage of the crisis. It documents the actions of private corporations, changes in the educational model, the impact on workers in the sector, and the challenges facing a programme of struggle.
- Topic:
- Education, Governance, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Brazil and South America
13. Building back better after the COVID-19 pandemic
- Author:
- Miguel Jaramillo and Bruno Escobar
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE)
- Abstract:
- In this policy-oriented paper, we provide a pre- and post-pandemic socioeconomic analysis of Peru, along with a financially sustainable five-year Building Back Better recovery plan, which emphasizes the urgency of addressing some of the country’s structural weaknesses. We underscore the importance of public investment for this effort, but widen the focus to include current public expenditure, in order to take steps towards building a more universal social protection system. We show that this also contributes to reducing the gender imbalances in the labor market that the pandemic exposed and exacerbated. We provide a financial programming exercise that demonstrates that the plan is financially responsible under a reasonable fiscal rule. Four core ideas stand out from our analysis. Firstly, while public investment can be key to reigniting economic growth, it does not go very far in tackling structural weaknesses. Secondly, public spending in health can actually achieve this from two fronts: by beginning to build a universal access social protection system and by addressing gender imbalances in the labor market. Thirdly, focusing public discussion on social protection enables a broader approach to policy reform by including formal employment and productivity enhancing reforms, which are essential for the sustainability of a broad social protection system. Finally, we also show that the sector mix in public investment has an impact on employment results, both in terms of the volume of jobs generated and their gender composition.
- Topic:
- Health, Inequality, COVID-19, Socioeconomics, Public Spending, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- South America and Peru
14. The pandemic will not stop us: The impact of COVID-19 on women’s peace activism in Colombia, the Philippines, South Sudan and Ukraine
- Author:
- Anne Marie Goetz
- Publication Date:
- 03-2021
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP)
- Abstract:
- In Fall 2020, a rapid review of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women peace activists in Colombia, South Sudan, the Philippines and Ukraine was conducted as part of an ongoing partnership between the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) and the New York University Center for Global Affairs (NYU CGA).1 The review found that the crisis has delayed implementation of peace agreements, in particular their gender provisions, shifted women’s peace advocacy to online spaces, impacted the membership composition of women’s peace groups, and diverted women’s organizational energies into humanitarian action to support community resilience.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Women, Pandemic, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, Ukraine, Asia, Philippines, Colombia, South America, and South Sudan
15. Accountability in Policing COVID-19: Lessons from the Field
- Author:
- Anna Myriam Roccatello and Mohamed Suma
- Publication Date:
- 09-2021
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
- Abstract:
- As countries around the world roll out their COVID-19 vaccination programs and gradually reopen their economies and borders, the coronavirus continues to ravage vulnerable communities. Moreover, these same communities have borne the brunt of the economic disruption caused by the pandemic, which decimated livelihoods, increased poverty, and exacerbated inequalities in many countries. Early in the pandemic, countries rushed to shut their borders and impose emergency measures, such as curfews, travel restrictions, and community lockdowns. States deployed security forces to enforce these measures, some of which resulted in widespread human rights violations, including torture, killings, and intimidation of persons perceived as failing to comply with their orders. Colombia, Kenya, Lebanon, and Uganda—all countries where ICTJ works—are among those whose security agencies weaponized their powers under these emergency measures and often used brutal means to keep people off the streets. While constitutional police forces committed the bulk of these abuses, a growing number of paramilitaries, citizen vigilantes, and other nonstate forces have also committed human rights violations while enforcing the emergency measures. However, the COVID-19 pandemic underscores states' obligation to protect the inherent right to life and the subsequent right to health. Moreover, national and international human rights laws allow states to temporarily suspend certain rights and invoke special powers that would be considered an infringement of civil liberties in normal situations. Thus, the suspension of those rights is justified by the need to protect the collective good. This paper analyzes the emerging trends of draconian regular policing and vigilante policing during the pandemic in Colombia, Kenya, Lebanon, and Uganda. The paper also describes how armed nonstate groups have come to exercise control in communities where there is no government presence to enforce emergency lockdown and other measures, with little regard for the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination. In all contexts, since the outbreak of the COVID-19, regular police and paramilitary forces have increased their powers, which they have abused extensively. As a result, some policing practices have become deadlier than the virus itself and have exposed the profound frailties of democratic governance.
- Topic:
- Reform, Criminal Justice, Crisis Management, Institutions, Police, and COVID-19
- Political Geography:
- Uganda, Kenya, Africa, Middle East, Colombia, South America, and Lebanon
16. New Avenues for Colombia’s Internationalization: Trade in Tasks
- Author:
- Ricardo Hausmann and Sebastian Bustos
- Publication Date:
- 12-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- One of the consequences of COVID-19 is the recognition that many tasks can be done from home. But anything that can done remotely, can be done from abroad. Given large salary differences between white collar workers across countries, it would make sense for value chains to try to exploit them. This opens an opportunity for Colombia to further promote its integration into the world global value chains and access new markets. This paper explores the possibility of exporting teleworkable services from Colombia. The goal is to provide useful information to guide strategic interventions to speed-up the development of such service industries in Colombia. We first introduce a definition of teleworkable jobs and describe its occupations and industries along different dimensions. We show that there are many teleworkable jobs in the US, representing a significant share of industry costs. Then, we show that many industries intensive in teleworkable jobs are currently traded across borders. To quantify Colombia’s advantage providing teleworkable services, we study the cost structure of industries and quantify the potential savings in overall costs if the tasks were performed by Colombians. Given Colombia’s current presence and the density around teleworkable industries we can calculate a proxy of the latent advantage in teleworkable services. We propose an index that summarize these dimensions and rank the potential gains from including telework from Colombia in an industry. We end with a set of policy recommendations to move this agenda forward.
- Topic:
- Human Capital, COVID-19, Labor Market, Skills, and Telework
- Political Geography:
- Colombia, South America, and Latin America