Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
The Center for Global Development is building on our initial efforts by launching the COVID-19 Gender and Development Initiative. This new initiative will aim to promote gender equality and long-term prosperity in low- and middle-income countries by informing global and national decisionmakers' policy responses to the current pandemic and future crises.
Given that international travelers introduced COVID-19 to almost every country in the world, it's natural to associate international mobility with the spread of disease. During the pandemic, 179 countries have implemented some form of travel restrictions. And beyond COVID-19, some countries may uphold such restrictions for fear of the next pandemic.
Early in the COVID-19 outbreak, experts warned of increased violence against women and children. Existing research about pandemics and disease outbreaks unfortunately aligns with the increased violence stemming from COVID-19 and related response efforts. Understanding why this happens is critical to inform policy and program responses to mitigate adverse effects.
Here we take a deeper dive into the promotion of a gender-equal global health workforce in which the occupations where women predominate, such as nursing and community health work, are valued, prioritized, and properly resourced.
Following wide criticism of the way the government had been formulating and communicating its COVID-19 response, particularly on its scientific rationale, the UK government has initiated daily public briefings on the evolving crisis. Below we run through the UK government’s communications so far, and outline recommendations for the government to improve its communication ever further, by revamping its whole evidence-informed decision-making approach.
Working towards structural changes that will take longer to come to fruition, especially those that relate to reducing global inequality, is the only way to radically decrease the extent of harm caused by moments of crisis, especially for vulnerable populations.
As education officials weigh their response to coronavirus, we offer four lessons from past experiences with school closures during disease outbreaks.
In December 2018, the Gavi Alliance hosted a mid-term review to assess progress towards its core purpose: “reach every child everywhere with vaccines against preventable diseases.” The good news is that there’s been advances on new vaccine introductions, and an estimated 65 million children were immunized with Gavi-supported new and underutilized vaccines in 2017. The bad news? There is still huge variability on the measure that counts most for building herd immunity and reducing vaccine-preventable disease: full vaccination for age among children under 2 years old.
CGD experts explain how the BRICS—home to 40 percent of all cases last year—could provide much-needed leadership on the global TB agenda.
We finally have some clarity on PEPFAR’s new “acceleration” strategy toward epidemic control: a lot more allocated to a few countries, and a lot less for others.
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