european think tanks group
Although it is too early to fully assess the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 on fragility and conflict in Africa, the pandemic is presenting long-term socio-economic and political challenges which could have long-lasting implications for fragility and security in Africa in 2021 and beyond.
The establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was a groundbreaking moment for global consensus on the shared rights of all human beings. 72 years later, international human rights agreements are often violated without consequence, with their impact on directly improving state’s human rights records modest at best. And Covid-19 has presented new, unexpected and unprecedented challenges to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as exacerbating suffering and violence from ongoing conflicts.
COVID-19 has changed the world and the way we live it, establishing something of a “new normal” as states and societies battle the pandemic and learn to accommodate its multidimensional effects. For Libyans’ living in the midst of conflict, normality and a new normal are difficult to determine.
COVID-19 has exacerbated factors influencing international support for peacebuilding, including a more volatile geopolitical order and changes in domestic priorities in donor countries. Peacebuilding and a conflict-sensitive approach have not yet been at the forefront of the international responses to COVID-19, undermining attempts to ‘build back better’ in a world where negative conflict dynamics are increasingly apparent.
Media coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic has raised the profile of armed groups in curious and often contradictory ways. ODI’s Centre for the Study of Armed Groups will seek to address these challenges in several ways.
COVID-19 has caused disruptions across the globe on a scale not previously imagined. This brief looks at the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for conflict-affected areas in Africa, as well as measures taken against the pandemic, which are likely to be even more profound and far-reaching. But as the virus continues to spread, the impact of COVID-19 on ongoing conflicts is still uncertain.
Europeans are incredibly lucky to largely not know what it feels like to fear for their lives due to war and violence. Yet suddenly, communities in Europe share characteristics with people who live in countries with violent conflict: coronavirus makes lives precarious and incomes unstable. It shows what it’s like when public services are underfunded, unreliable and insufficient.
