Table Of ContentElissaios Papyrakis Editor
COVID-19
and International
Development
COVID-19 and International Development
Elissaios Papyrakis
Editor
COVID-19 and International
Development
Editor
Elissaios Papyrakis
International Institute of Social Studies (ISS)
Erasmus University Rotterdam
The Hague, The Netherlands
ISBN 978-3-030-82338-2 ISBN 978-3-030-82339-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82339-9
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Preface
The Covid-19 pandemic is currently reversing development gains that were achieved
with much dedicated effort in most parts of the developing world during the last few
decades. The Covid-19 economic downturn contributed to a rise in global poverty
for the first time since the early 2000s. Existing inequalities interlink with the
Covid-19 impacts to intensify the vulnerabilities of low-income communities and
individuals. Many intertwined factors generate a toxic mix that disadvantages devel-
oping economies and their populations. The unprecedented health crisis in India
(especially since April 2021) with severe oxygen shortage at hospitals exposed the
unpreparedness of its public health system. While developed economies can resort
to significant fiscal and monetary expansion (at a very low cost), developing nations
face severe liquidity constraints and restricted access to international funds. At the
same, governments in developed nations reduced their bilateral development assis-
tance reserving funds for their own economies. This lack of international solidarity
is further exemplified by the unequal distribution of vaccines globally.
The media’s portrayal of the Covid-19 pandemic in developed countries is
largely skewed towards highlighting domestic health developments and policy
responses. In an ever-interconnected world, however, isolationist reactions are
unlikely to provide solutions to global health problems that will prevent the further
mutation of the virus and its rapid spread across national borders. Similarly, protec-
tionist measures and curbed international aid are likely to slow down the pace of the
global economic recovery. This is a book written by development specialists to
explicitly discuss how the current pandemic influences international development
debates and to reflect on the specificities of developing countries and the challenges
they currently face. Its novelty lies in being the first book that explains the multifac-
eted implications of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic for international development
from a social science perspective. It is the outcome of a collaborative project
between scholars based at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, and other scientists coming primarily from the Global South.
It is a joint effort to highlight inequalities in Covid-19 vulnerability and expose their
underlying causes. Each chapter focuses on a specific field of international develop-
ment and examines how the current pandemic amplifies pre-existing challenges and
grievances.
v
vi Preface
We wrote this book having in mind the interested but not necessarily specialist
reader – we analyse key issues in a simple and comprehensive manner, without
resorting to technical language or assuming prior knowledge of the field. We expect
that the book will be particularly helpful for students in economics, political sci-
ence, anthropology, international relations, geography and international develop-
ment, who wish to familiarise themselves with the multifaceted implications of the
Covid-19 pandemic for developing countries. In addition, we anticipate that the
book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners who want to learn about how
the current coronavirus pandemic fundamentally reshapes existing debates and pro-
cesses in international development.
The Hague, The Netherlands Elissaios Papyrakis
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to many of our colleagues and friends, who generously provided
their feedback and ideas (and helped us shape the book in its current form). We have
been very fortunate in having Springer’s generous support (and patience) towards
this research endeavour – we are especially grateful to Ambrose Berkumans,
Margaret Deignan, Karthika Menon, Metilda Nancy Marie Rayan and Hermine
Vloemans for their continuous guidance and feedback across various stages of the
process. We are also much indebted to our family and friends, who were the first
ones to read parts of the book and provide their honest opinion on the covered
material.
We wish to dedicate this book to our students who often do not realise how much
we ourselves learn from them; they inspire us to think outside the box and they are
our fellow companions in our lifelong journey of learning. We have much admira-
tion for them. Their studies have been much disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic
and their social interaction has been largely confined to the virtual space. For almost
all of them, this has been a very difficult and challenging year; they had to maintain
focus on their studies and assignments, despite worrying about their affected family
members and friends at home.
vii
Contents
1 Covid-19 and International Development:
Impacts, Drivers and Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Elissaios Papyrakis
2 Reforming the International Financial
and Fiscal System for Better COVID-19
and Post-pandemic Crisis Responsiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Rolph van der Hoeven and Rob Vos
3 COVID-19 and the Threat to Globalization:
An Optimistic Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Sylvanus Kwaku Afesorgbor, Peter A. G. van Bergeijk,
and Binyam Afewerk Demena
4 Experiences of Eritrean and Ethiopian Migrants
During COVID-19 in the Netherlands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Bezawit Fantu, Genet Haile, Yordanos Lassooy Tekle,
Sreerekha Sathi, Binyam Afewerk Demena,
and Zemzem Shigute
5 Consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic
for Economic Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Syed Mansoob Murshed
6 The Short-Term Impact of COVID-19 on Labour
Market Outcomes: Comparative Systematic Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Binyam Afewerk Demena, Andrea Floridi, and Natascha Wagner
7 Covid-19 and the Informal Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Michele Romanello
8 Indirect Health Effects Due to COVID-19: An Exploration
of Potential Economic Costs for Developing Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Natascha Wagner
ix
x Contents
9 Effects of COVID-19 on Education and Schools’ Reopening
in Latin America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Georgina M. Gómez and G. J. Andrés Uzín P.
10 Indigenous People, Extractive Imperative
and Covid-19 in the Amazon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Murat Arsel and Lorenzo Pellegrini
11 Covid-19 and Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Agni Kalfagianni and Elissaios Papyrakis
12 Covid-19 and Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Farhad Mukhtarov, Elissaios Papyrakis, and Matthias Rieger
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Chapter 1
Covid-19 and International Development:
Impacts, Drivers and Responses
Elissaios Papyrakis
Abstract The current coronavirus pandemic fundamentally reshapes existing
debates and processes in international development. The unprecedented (and rap-
idly evolving) crisis is generating a number of substantial challenges for developing
economies. Governments in low-income nations often find it extremely hard to cope
with the increased demand for health services, make prompt decisions and put them
into action, protect vulnerable segments of society and offer immediate relief to
affected economic sectors. The current pandemic influences several development
outcomes (in the domains of poverty/inequality, health, education, migration, for-
mal/informal employment, (de)globalisation, the extractive sector, climate change,
water and the global financial system).
1.1 Introduction
Since the first known human infections in Wuhan, China in late 2019, the coronavi-
rus SARS-CoV-2 (responsible for the Covid-19 disease and current pandemic) has
rapidly spread to almost every single country around the world. There are currently
more than three million deaths attributed to Covid-19 (and close to 140 million
infections – although the accuracy of these figures depends largely on the testing
practices of individual countries). Many developing countries have experienced a
very large (cumulative) number of Covid-19 related deaths; Brazil, Mexico and
India, for instance, have reported more than 365,000, 210,000 and 170,000
coronavirus- related deaths (as of April 2021; detailed information can be found at
the WHO website: https://covid19.who.int). The limited institutional preparedness
and poor health infrastructure to deal with the rapid spread of the virus was much
E. Papyrakis (*)
International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam,
The Hague, The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1
Switzerland AG 2022
E. Papyrakis (ed.), COVID-19 and International Development,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82339-9_1
