Shadow Pandemics: The Collateral Effects of COVID on Fragile States

Recent years have seen a sharp rise in the deliberate, strategic denial of humanitarian access in many forms, ranging from burdensome checkpoints along routes of aid delivery to violence against aid workers. As the gap between humanitarian need and available resources widens at an alarming pace, the ability of that limited aid to reach the most vulnerable and of the most vulnerable to receive aid is also deteriorating. The COVID-19 pandemic and collateral effects have been a worldwide strategic shock and yet there has been little information on the direct and second-order effects on humanitarian aid.

The Capstone team analyzed the impact of COVID-19 on humanitarian access in three fragile contexts—Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Myanmar/Bangladesh (Rohingya)—and offered tailored, specific recommendations to US policymakers and multilateral organizations to mitigate access challenges. The format of this research was three comprehensive country reports. The team has concluded that COVID-19 did not create new barriers to humanitarian access but has greatly intensified and exacerbated pre-existing humanitarian aid constraints. In the fact of COVID-19, humanitarian needs have escalated while humanitarian access has sharply declined, forcing the humanitarian aid sector to adapt rapidly. In many cases, the pandemic engendered “shadow pandemics,” such as a widespread spike in domestic and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) as a result of lockdown orders, but sources of insecurity, fragility, and conflict existed far before COVID-19 struck countries.