Assessing key considerations for burial practices, death and mourning in epidemics

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This Practical Approaches brief highlights key considerations for rapidly appraising burial/funerary practices and beliefs around death/dying during an epidemic. It provides guidance on the relevant social science knowledge required to adapt epidemic preparedness and response to the local context. By using this tool, an overview of local knowledge, meaning and practice will be gained, which can help inform programming related to death and burial.   Download

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Responses to Covid-19 must focus on communities and not just past epidemics

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In the current global pandemic, there is a lot that can be learned from past epidemics. What is poignantly missing, however, is acknowledgement of local perspectives to disease outbreak and  response. Jeremy Allouche and Dienedort Wandji argue we need to better understand how individuals and local communities in Africa, and beyond, have learnt and developed social, cultural and institutional mechanisms to deal with protracted crises. Read more

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Identifying & Mitigating Gender-based Violence Risks within the COVID-19 Response

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The COVID-19 pandemic continues to present an array of challenges, forcing nearly all types of basic service delivery – including, but not limited to, humanitarian response – to drastically adapt. Given how quickly the outbreak continues to evolve; the variation across contexts in the impact of the disease and the measures being implemented to control its spread; and the lack of documented good practice for delivering aid and services under such conditions, to a large…

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Tackling COVID-19 in Uganda: private medicine outlets at the front-line

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At the time of writing (31st March), Uganda has 44 reported cases of COVID-19, and approximately 1,800 people are under quarantine. Uganda has been very effective so far in its response to outbreaks and President Museveni is spearheading efforts to control the pandemic. Social distancing measures are being enacted such as closures of schools and religious buildings, public gatherings, the suspension of public transport and closures of shops and malls. The relative youthfulness of the…

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COVID-19 and the toxic politics of exploitation

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We are all under siege. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, Louisa Waugh from Saferworld agrues that urgent action is needed to challenge the governments who are exploiting it for their own ends, and to address the dangers confronting the world’s most vulnerable people.   Read more

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Key Principles for Conflict-Sensitive Messaging

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The global COVID-19 Pandemic is having an impact on all aspects of life around the world and will affect different nations and peoples in different ways. Conflict sensitivity thinking is more  critical in the midst of a crisis like COVID-19. This is precisely because clinical and social measures being practiced globally, will have implications in different local contexts. The CSRF   emphasises that responses in South Sudan should take note of the local context, norms and…

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What does COVID-19 mean for South Sudan and a conflict sensitive response?

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This blog post presents the CSRF’s initial thoughts on the impact of COVID-19 on aid in South Sudan. The ground has shifted beneath our feet in ways that we have never known before. Governments around the world are grappling with how to effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, borders have closed, and economies are screeching to a halt as entire countries impose lockdowns. A global humanitarian crisis on an unknown scale continues to unfold due…

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“Vulnerable people are hit much harder, which is also what we’re seeing during the current coronavirus crisis”

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According to Thea Hilhorst, Professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, disasters don’t just happen completely out of the blue, and they are never equally distributed, either. Disasters only turn into disasters in places where people are vulnerable to their impact. And vulnerable people are hit much harder, which is also what we’re seeing happen during the current coronavirus crisis.   Read more

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Increasing Segregation? Impact of Covid19 in the Cities of Africa and South Asia

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The current Covid 19 pandemic is likely to spread in the next few weeks and months to the South and in particular South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa. The impact may well be of a greater scale than that currently experienced in the North; India was the region with the highest loss of live in the 1918-1919 Spanish flu Pandemic. The experience and historical experience suggests that urban areas will be disproportionately affected.   Read…

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The Impact of COVID-19 on Peace Operations

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Today, more than 50 missions are all in full crisis management mode and are adapting to a radical new situation while ensuring the safety of approximately 160,000 civilian, police, and military peacekeepers. Most of the countries where these missions are deployed have closed their borders and have imposed social distancing measures. Countries like South Sudan have asked the United Nations not to rotate new troops into their countries, especially from countries that are seen as…

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