Re-addressing equity through evidence – driven COVID-19 recovery planning

Introduction

There is increasing consciousness that the COVID-19 pandemic coexists and interacts with other risks, especially climate change, through overlapping social processes and conditions that underpin vulnerabilities. The African continent is of particular focus due to its disproportionate vulnerability to the pandemic and climate change exacerbated by inherent inequalities. African Governments have made commendable efforts towards managing the pandemic even though these efforts have been widely characterised by emergency reaction and replications from elsewhere. As efforts shift from the emergency response to longer term management and recovery planning, the continent is experiencing a key gap in the use of scientific evidence to inform more integrated and inclusive plans for the pandemic and existing shocks such as climate change. For instance, while there is an increasing attention and research on COVID-19 and its linkages with climate change i.e., through the green recovery efforts, the lack of synthesised and consumable evidence as well as weak demand for this evidence could impede sustainable and equitable recovery and learning from the pandemic. This project draws on a mixed-methods approach comprising a rapid evidence synthesis of existing research; detailed country case studies; policy analysis; and targeted policy engagements to examine evidence needs for policy makers and translates available research to meet these needs. The focus is on the longer-term planning for the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa (with a focus on East Africa) and the key linkages to equity in climate action, and general social welfare of vulnerable groups including the youth, women and others. By understanding existing evidence and sensitizing users (especially policy makers) to the existence of and usefulness of this evidence while documenting experiences, and learnings, this project will build a stronger foundation for knowledge and practice in Africa

The specific scope of the work is as follows:

The overall objective is to strengthen opportunities for uptake of research evidence (including IDRC-supported research) on COVID-19 by engaging and sensitising knowledge users (especially policy makers) to the existence of and usefulness of this evidence while documenting experiences, and learnings towards strengthened foundation for knowledge and practice in Africa.

The specific objectives of the project include:

1. To identify priority evidence needs and potential gaps for African Governments (focusing on the East African region/ countries) with regards to impacts and response to COVID-19 and how that intersects equity in climate change and wider social justice principles.
2. To synthesise evidence and develop a research agenda on priority evidence needs for African policy makers.
3. To catalyse evidence uptake into decisions and practice evidence co-creation process that involves strengthening feedback loop between the evidence synthesis process, feedback from policy makers and subsequent uptake.
4. To generate lessons and learning frameworks on best practices for Knowledge Translation and practice through documenting the key challenges, opportunities and processes characterising the knowledge translation and use this to suggest a framework that can be tested and adopted widely both by IDRC and other research for development stakeholders. We are interested in creating KTP model

Reference Materials

IDRC’s response to COVID-19

Outputs

Blog