COVID-19 has offered regimes in the region the opportunity to end popular protest. The squares of Algiers, Baghdad, and Beirut – all packed with protesters over the past few months – are now empty due to the pandemic, and political gatherings have also been suspended. In Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon, COVID-19 has achieved what snipers, pro-regime propaganda, and even the economic crisis, could not.

Moreover, political regimes have taken advantage of the crisis to expand their control over the political sphere by arresting their opponents, such as in Algeria where the authorities have cracked down on a number of active voices of the Hirak movement. Similarly, in Lebanon, security forces have used the pandemic as an excuse to crush sit-ins held in Martyr’s Square in Beirut and Nour Square in Tripoli.

However, despite the challenges that the pandemic has brought, it also offers opportunities for protest movements in the region. While the crisis has put an end to popular mobilization in the streets, it has  created new forms of activism in the shape of solidarity initiatives to help those affected by its consequences.

In Iraq, for example, protest groups have directed their work towards awareness-raising and sharing essential food to help mitigate the problem of food shortages and rising prices across the country. In Algeria, Hirak activists have run online campaigns to raise awareness about the virus and have encouraged people to stay at home. Others have been cleaning and disinfecting public spaces. These initiatives increase the legitimacy of the protest movement, and if coupled with political messages, could offer these movements an important chance to expand their base of popular support.

Exposes economic vulnerability

Economic grievances, corruption and poor provision of public services have been among the main concerns of this recent wave of protests. This pandemic only further exposes the levels of economic vulnerability in the region. COVID-19 is laying bare the socio-economic inequalities in MENA countries; this is particularly evident in the numbers of people engaged in the informal economy with no access to social security, including health insurance and pensions.

Informal employment, approximately calculated by the share of the labour force not contributing to social security, is estimated to amount to 65.5% of total employment in Lebanon, 64.4% in Iraq, and 63.3% in Algeria. The crisis has underscored the vulnerability of this large percentage of the labour force who have been unable to afford the economic repercussions of following state orders to stay at home.

The situation has also called attention to the vital need for efficient public services and healthcare systems. According to the fifth wave of the Arab Barometer, 74.4% of people in Lebanon are dissatisfied with their country’s healthcare services, as are 67.8% of people in Algeria and 66.5% in Iraq.

Meanwhile, 66.2% of people in Lebanon believe it is necessary to pay a bribe in order to receive better healthcare, as do 56.2% of people in Iraq and 55.9% in Algeria. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need for more government investment in public healthcare systems to render them more efficient and less corrupt, strengthening the protesters’ case for the need for radical socio-economic reforms.

On the geopolitical level, the crisis puts into question the stability-focused approach of Western powers towards the region. For years, Western powers have directed their aid towards security forces in the interests of combating terrorism but COVID-19 has proved itself to be a much more lethal challenge to both the region and the West.

Facing this new challenge requires international actors to reconsider their approach to include supporting health and education initiatives, as well as freedom of expression and transparency. As argued by Western policymakers themselves, it was China’s lack of transparency and slow response that enabled the proliferation of the virus, when it could have been contained in Wuhan back in December 2019.

This crisis therefore offers regional protest movements the opportunity to capitalize on this moment and push back against the policies of Western powers that have invested in regional stability only to the extent of combating Islamic jihad. 

But crises do not change the world, people do. The COVID-19 pandemic will not in itself result in political change in the MENA region. Rather, it brings opportunities and risks that, when exploited, will allow political actors to advance their own agendas. While the crisis has put an end to popular mobilization and allowed regimes to tighten their grip over the political sphere, behind these challenges lie real opportunities for protest movements.

The current situation represents a possibility for them to expand their popular base through solidarity initiatives and has exposed more widely the importance of addressing socio-economic inequalities. Finally, it offers the chance to challenge the stability-focused approach of Western powers towards the region which until now has predominantly focused on combating terrorism.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to claim lives around the world. As countries grapple with how best to tackle the virus and the reverberations the pandemic is sending through their societies and economies, scientific understanding of how the coronavirus is behaving, and what measures might best combat it, continues to advance.

Join us for the seventh in a weekly series of interactive webinars on the coronavirus with Professor David Heymann and special guest Professor Ilona Kickbusch helping us to understand the facts and make sense of the latest developments in the global crisis.

What will the geopolitics of the pandemic mean for multilateralism? As the US retreats, what dynamics are emerging around other actors and what are the implications for the World Health Organization? Is the EU stepping up to play a bigger role in global health? Will the pandemic galvanize the global cooperation long called for?

Professor Heymann is a world-leading authority on infectious disease outbreaks. He led the World Health Organization’s response to SARS and has been advising the organization on its response to the coronavirus. 

Professor Kickbusch is one of the world’s leading experts in global health diplomacy and governance. She advises international organizations, national governments, NGOs and the private sector on new directions and innovations in global health, governance for health and health promotion.

Differing approaches across the hemisphere have had different impacts on presidential popularity and, at least in one case, on democratic institutions and human rights. Yet, even within that diversity, South America’s Southern Cone countries (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) have shown a sign of solidarity: protecting and facilitating trade flows, sponsoring cross-border research and ensuring citizens’ return to their home countries.    

The response from populist leaders

On the extreme have been the responses of presidents of Brazil, Nicaragua and Mexico, all of whom have ignored the science of the virus and of experts and refused to implement isolation policies.  President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil fired his health minister, Luis Henrique Mandetta on 16 April for contradicting him and earlier had claimed that the pandemic was a hoax or little more than a ‘measly cold.' 

Meanwhile, Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has resisted closing businesses and schools.  After a mysterious 34-day absence, Ortega appeared on television on 15 April reinforcing his refusal to close businesses saying that Nicaraguans must work or they will die and claiming that the virus was ‘imported.’ 

Mexico’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has also resisted the call for strict stay-at-home policies, though with his Deputy Health Minister, Hugo López-Gatell, has closed schools – recently extending the closure to the 1st of June and urging non-essential businesses to close – but focusing primarily on social distancing. 

In contrast to his deputy health minister and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard – who had declared the situation a health emergency on 30th March, later than many neighbouring countries – AMLO has largely attempted to avoid discussion of the pandemic, claiming that in his case he has lucky charms that prevent him from contracting the virus. 

And both Bolsonaro and AMLO have participated in large public rallies, doing all the things that politicians love, shaking hands and hugging babies, and in the case of the former even wiping his nose before embracing an elderly woman.

The Nicaraguan, Brazilian and Mexican presidents make an odd grouping since one (Bosonaro) is considered of the extreme populist right and the others (Ortega and AMLO) of the populist left. What unites them is good old-fashioned populism, a belief in a leader who represents the amorphous popular will and should be unfettered by checks and balances on his power, including something like… science.  

An eclectic group

At the other extreme have been the quick responses by governments in Peru, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador and Colombia which put quarantine measures in place in mid-March. In these cases, governments have even banned outdoor activities and in the case of Peru and Colombia (in the large cities) have imposed alternating days for when women and men can leave the house so as to better control outside movement.  

This too, though, is an eclectic group. It includes a Peronist president Alberto Fernández in Argentina, conservative presidents Sebastian Piñera in Chile and Ivan Duque in Colombia, interim president and relative political neophyte Martin Vizcarra in Peru and outsider president Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. 

El Salvador’s strict quarantine measures have led to rising concerns that Bukele is using the crisis to consolidate personal power, using the national police and the armed forces to enforce the quarantine and ignoring three rulings by the Supreme Court urging the president to end the abuses. In Argentina, Peronist Fernández has shown a surprising commitment to containment even as it hurts his party’s working-class base, not something typically expected of the populist Peronist Party.   

In all of these cases, the quick, strong responses by the presidents shored up their popularity. Peru’s Vizcarra saw his popularity shoot up 35 points in a week to 82 per cent according to surveys taken in March. In late March 2020, Fernández in Argentina saw his approval ratings swell to 79.2 per cent with 94.7 percent of citizens approving of the government’s strict shelter-at-home policies.   Even presidents Piñera and Duque who had struggled with low approval ratings throughout 2019 and saw those numbers sink even lower after the social protests that ended the year have seen their numbers rise.  

According to an 20th April poll, Piñera’s popular approval rating swelled from 13 percent in March 18th at the start of the crisis to 25 per cent by 20th April; while hardly a sweeping popular mandate, even that level was unthinkable only a few months ago when administration was battered by social protests. 

In Colombia, after a series of political missteps and the popular protests, Duque’s popular approval rating had slumped to 26 per cent; by April 2nd, 62 percent of Colombians supported the once-beleaguered president.   (No recent surveys were available for Bukele in El Salvador.)

In contrast, Bolsonaro’s in Brazil has only nudged up.  Before the crisis hit, the president’s popularity had been in steady decline from a high of 49 per cent in January 2019 to 30 per cent by early December 2019. But by the first week in April, in the midst of a crisis in which other presidents saw their approval ratings increase by double digits, after his public disagreements with the health minister, Bolsonaro’s had sunk to 33 per cent while the soon-to-be-fired Mandetta’s stood at 76 per cent.  

AMLO in Mexico has fared no better. The populist leftist scored a high 86 per cent approval rating in February 1, 2019. By March 28, 2020 with concerns over his weak and flippant COVID-19 response and a severe contraction in economic growth, AMLO’s approval rating had sunk 26 points to 60 per cent and his disapproval stood at 37 per cent.    

In the midst of disharmony, coordination

Despite these differences, many countries in the region have shown the solidarity they often speak of but rarely follow in policy or practice. Peru, Chile and other countries have collaborated in repatriating citizens back to their home countries in the midst of the crisis.  

Even the countries of the Southern Cone common market, MERCOSUR, have pulled together on a number of fronts.  The trade bloc had effectively been ruled a dead-man-walking after its failed efforts to integrate Venezuela into the bloc, lowering its standards to let in the petroleum dependent semi-authoritarian government of then President Hugo Chávez. 

Even on the basics of internal cooperation, the block was struggling, unable to coordinate monetary policies and non-tariff trade barriers between the original founding member states, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The 35-year-old customs union seemed to get a breath a new life with the announcement that it had concluded 20-year-long negotiations with the EU for a free trade deal. Ratification of that deal, however, ran aground on the political differences between the recently elected governments of Bolsonaro in Brazil and the Peronist Fernández in Argentina. 

Bolsonaro refused to attend the Fernández December 2019 inauguration, in protest of the newly elected president’s leftist leanings.  And this was well before their sharply divergent reactions to the COVID-19 virus. 

How surprising then that Mercosur has served as an effective coordination mechanism for these different and once opposed governments. The trade body is collaborating among member states to ensure the repatriation of citizens and has agreed to coordinate to ensure that trade flows, especially of medical supplies, are not interrupted by shutdown measures. 

Mercosur has even gone one step further than several other bodies have failed to take.  In early April the bloc’s governing body, based in Montevideo, Uruguay created a $16 million (12 million pound) fund to augment country research and assist in the purchase of supplies needed to combat the virus.  

Now if Brazil, Argentina and the others could only coordinate their domestic coronavirus responses and economic policy. In late March Fernández announced he was pulling Argentina out of a possible Mercosur-EU trade deal.

Despite face-to-face diplomatic meetings being increasingly rare during the current disruption, COVID-19 will ultimately force a redefinition of national security and defence spending priorities, and this could provide the possibility of an improved political climate at RevCon when it happens in 2021.

With US presidential elections due in November and a gradual engagement growing between the EU and Iran, there could be a new context for more cooperation between states by 2021. Two key areas of focus over the coming months will be the arms control talks between the United States and Russia, and Iran’s compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal.

It is too early to discern the medium- and longer-term consequences of COVID-19 for defence ministries, but a greater focus on societal resilience and reinvigorating economic productivity will likely undercut the rationale for expensive nuclear modernization.

Therefore, extending the current New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) would be the best, most practical option to give both Russia and the United States time to explore more ambitious multilateral arms control measures, while allowing their current focus to remain on the pandemic and economic relief.

Continuing distrust

But with the current treaty — which limits nuclear warheads, missiles, bombers, and launchers — due to expire in February 2021, the continuing distrust between the United States and Russia makes this extension hard to achieve, and a follow-on treaty even less likely.

Prospects for future bilateral negotiations are hindered by President Donald Trump’s vision for a trilateral arms control initiative involving both China and Russia. But China opposes this on the grounds that its nuclear arsenal is far smaller than that of the two others.

While there appears to be agreement that the nuclear arsenals of China, France, and the UK (the NPT nuclear-weapons states) and those of the states outside the treaty (India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel) will all have to be taken into account going forward, a practical mechanism for doing so proves elusive.

If Joe Biden wins the US presidency he seems likely to pursue an extension of the New START treaty and could also prevent a withdrawal from the Open Skies treaty, the latest arms control agreement targeted by the Trump administration.

Under a Biden administration, the United States would also probably re-join the JCPOA, provided Tehran returned to strict compliance with the deal. Biden could even use the team that negotiated the Iran deal to advance the goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

For an NPT regime already confronted by a series of longstanding divergences, it is essential that Iran remains a signatory especially as tensions between Iran and the United States have escalated recently — due to the Qassim Suleimani assassination and the recent claim by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to have successfully placed the country’s first military satellite into orbit.

This announcement raised red flags among experts about whether Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles due to the dual-use nature of space technology. The satellite launch — deeply troubling for Iran’s neighbours and the EU countries — may strengthen the US argument that it is a cover for the development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

However, as with many other countries, Iran is struggling with a severe coronavirus crisis and will be pouring its scientific expertise and funds into that rather than other efforts — including the nuclear programme.

Those European countries supporting the trading mechanism INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) for sending humanitarian goods into Iran could use this crisis to encourage Iran to remain in compliance with the JCPOA and its NPT obligations.

France, Germany and the UK (the E3) have already successfully concluded the first transaction, which was to facilitate the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran. But the recent Iranian escalatory steps will most certainly place a strain on the preservation of this arrangement.

COVID-19 might have delayed Iran’s next breach of the 2015 nuclear agreement but Tehran will inevitably seek to strengthen its hand before any potential negotiations with the United States after the presidential elections.

As frosty US-Iranian relations — exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — prevent diplomatic negotiations, this constructive engagement between the E3 and Iran might prove instrumental in reviving the JCPOA and ensuring Iran stays committed to both nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

While countries focus their efforts on tackling the coronavirus pandemic, it is understandable resources may be limited for other global challenges, such as the increasing risk of nuclear weapons use across several regions.

But the potential ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis for the NPT regime are profound. Ongoing tensions between the nuclear-armed states must not be ignored while the world’s focus is elsewhere, and the nuclear community should continue to work together to progress nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, building bridges of cooperation and trust that can long outlast the pandemic.

The US government recently announced restrictions on immigration, stating the new measures were necessary due to COVID-19 and the effect the pandemic has had on the US economy. But what is the role of immigrants in the essential official and unofficial services in the COVID-19 stay-at-home era? How is COVID-19 affecting immigration from Central America and Mexico? 

Separately, there have also been instances of outbreaks among detainees in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers and claims that immigrants who are returning to Guatemala are spreading the virus. How have US immigration policies affected infection rates in Central America and Mexico and among its citizens?

Arturo Sarukhan, Mexican Ambassador to the US from 2007 - 13, and Anita Isaacs, Benjamin R. Collins Professor of Social Sciences, Haverford College, will join us to discuss the impact COVID-19 is having on migrants.

Chatham House would like to thank BTG Pactual, Cairn Energy plc, Diageo plc, Equinor, Fresnillo Management Services, HSBC Holdings plc and Wintershall Dea for their generous support of the Latin America Initiative.

This event is scheduled to take place from 15:00 – 16:00 BST.

This virtual roundtable has been co-convened by Chatham House and the Aga Khan Foundation.  

While conducting research in fragile and conflict-affected contexts has always presented challenges, the outbreak of COVID-19 creates additional challenges including travel restrictions, ethical challenges, and disruptions to usual modes of working. This virtual roundtable will explore how organizations can adapt their research and monitoring and evaluation models in response to the coronavirus pandemic. This event aims to discuss the research methods being used to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis; the important role of technology; and ways to engage policy and decision-makers during this time.

 

This event is part of the US and Americas Programme Inaugural Virtual Roundtable Series on the US and the State of the World and will take place virtually only.

This event will take place from 14:00 – 15:00 BST.

In August 2012, when the UN released its report Gaza in 2020: A liveable place?, they could not have imagined what the world would look like in 2020: cities under lockdown, restrictions on movement, border closures, widespread unemployment, economic collapse, fear and anxiety and, above all, uncertainty about what the future holds.

For Gaza’s population of 2 million people this reality is nothing new. The conditions that the rest of the world are currently experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is similar to the tight blockade Gaza has been living under ever since Hamas took over in 2007. Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods, youth unemployment has reached 60 per cent, and over 80 per cent of Gaza’s population are now dependent on international aid.

The people of Gaza are having to face the COVID-19 crisis already at a disadvantage, with poor infrastructure, limited resources and a shortage of the most basic services, such as water and power supply. It also has a fragile health system, with hospitals lacking essential medical supplies and equipment, as well as the capacity to deal with the outbreak as there are only 84 ICU beds and ventilators available.

 

Meanwhile, intra-Palestinian divisions have persisted and were evident in the initial reaction to the pandemic. When President Mahmoud Abbas announced a state of emergency, it took two days for the Hamas-led government in Gaza to follow suit and shut down schools and universities. They later made a separate emergency appeal to address the crisis and prepare for a COVID-19 response in Gaza. This lack of coordination is typical of the way the Palestinian Authority and Hamas approach crisis situations.

After the initial uncoordinated response, Hamas, as the de-facto ruler of Gaza, has asserted its ability to control Gaza’s borders by putting in place quarantine measures for everyone who enters the strip, whether through the Erez checkpoint with Israel or the Rafah border with Egypt. They have also assigned 21 hospitals, hotels, and schools as compulsory quarantine centres for all arrivals from abroad, who have to stay in quarantine for 21 days. In comparison, there are 20 quarantine centres in the West Bank.  These strict measures have prevented the spread of the virus in the community and confined it to the quarantine centres, with only 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of 6 May. Gaza’s de-facto authorities have also been able to monitor markets and prices to ensure the availability of essential goods.

Faced with a major crisis, Al-Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of Hamas – have tried to play the role of a national army by participating in efforts to fight the pandemic. They have relatively good logistical capacity and have contributed to the construction of two quarantine facilities with a total capacity of 1,000 units to prepare for more arrivals into Gaza. At the local level, municipalities have been disinfecting public spaces and facilities in addition to disseminating information about the virus and related preventative and protective measures. Other precautionary measures put in place include closing the weekly open markets, and restricting social gatherings like weddings and funerals.

Despite COVID-19, it’s business as usual when it comes to international dealings with Gaza. The key parties in the conflict – Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority – along with the main external actors – Egypt, the United Nations and Qatar – have continued to stick to their policies aimed at keeping the security situation under control and preventing further escalation. Although Israel has allowed entry of pharmaceutical supplies and medical equipment into Gaza during the pandemic, it has kept its restrictions on the movement of goods and people in place, while keeping a close eye on the development of the COVID-19 outbreak in Gaza – a major outbreak here would be a nightmare scenario for Israel.

Meanwhile, Qatar has continued to address the humanitarian and economic needs of Gaza in an attempt to ease the pressure and prevent further escalation. It has pledged $150 million over the next six months to help families in Gaza from poorer backgrounds. Gaza has also been discussed by the Middle East Quartet, as Nickolay Mladenov, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, expressed his concern about the risk of a disease outbreak in Gaza during a call with the members of the Quartet.

Amid the pandemic, threats are still being exchanged between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli defence minister, Naftali Bennett, requested that in return for providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, Hamas agrees to return the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in the 2014 war. While openly rejecting Bennett's statement, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, has offered to move forward with a prisoner swap deal if Israel agrees to release elderly prisoners and detainees in addition to detained women and children. Though dealing with its own COVID-19 outbreak, Egypt has started to mediate between the two parties in an attempt to stabilize the situation and reach a prisoner swap deal.

In the wake of this pandemic, lessons should be learned and policies should be examined, by all parties. Firstly, Israel should re-evaluate its security measures towards Gaza by easing restrictions on movement and trade which would have a positive impact on living conditions for Gaza’s population. The current measures have proven to be unsustainable and have contributed to the endless cycle of violence. Secondly, the intra-Palestinian division should end, to save Palestinians from contradictory policies and insufficient capacity on both sides. In fact, all previous attempts have failed to end this self-destructive division and this is due to the absence of political will on both sides. Elections seem to be the only viable path towards unity. Finally, efforts by the international community should go beyond stabilizing the security situation and ongoing crisis inside Gaza, where disruption of normal life is the norm.

While the world has reacted to this pandemic with a whole host of new policies and emergency measures, it has remained business as usual when dealing with Gaza. Should COVID-19 spread in Gaza, its people – who have already paid the price of a continuous blockade and intra-Palestinian division for 13 years – will pay a heavy price yet again. However, this time it is not a crisis that they alone will have to face.

As countries grapple with how best to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and the reverberations it is sending through their societies and economies, scientific understanding of how the virus is behaving, and what measures might best combat it, continues to advance. This briefing will focus on the progress towards and prospects for a coronavirus vaccine, exploring the scientific considerations, the production, distribution and allocation challenges as well as the access politics.

Join us for the eighth in a weekly series of interactive webinars on the coronavirus with Professor David Heymann and special guest, Professor David Salisbury, helping us to understand the facts and make sense of the latest developments in the global crisis. With 80 candidate vaccines reported to be in development, how will scientists and governments select the 'right' one? What should be the role of global leadership and international coordination in the development and distribution of a new vaccine? And can equitable access be ensured across the globe?

Professor Heymann is a world-leading authority on infectious disease outbreaks. He led the World Health Organization’s response to SARS and has been advising the organization on its response to the coronavirus.

Professor Salisbury was director of immunization at the UK Department of Health from 2007 to 2013. He was responsible for the national immunization programme and led the introduction of many new vaccines. He previously chaired the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization and served as co-chair of the Pandemic Influenza group of the G7 Global Health Security Initiative.

This event will be livestreamed.

Although protests successfully ended Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s 20-year sultanistic rule a little over one year ago, demands have been continuing to dismantle the system, get rid of the old personnel, and institute democracy.

The controversial election in December of Abdelmadjid Tebboune — who has inherited a disastrous situation — has not tempered the determination of the Hirak protest movement. As a former minister and prime minister under Bouteflika, the new president has won little legitimacy, and protests have continued.

Now COVID-19 is worsening already dire economic conditions, such as a sharp drop in oil prices. By the beginning of May, statistics showed 10% of confirmed cases have ended in fatality, the highest percentage in the region.

Maintaining an authoritarian style

Hirak had already called for the suspension of the marches — mobilising online instead — before the government’s measures, which include curfews and lockdowns, demonstrating a high sense of duty. But instead of appeasing Hirak’s demands, the government has maintained the authoritarian style of its predecessors.

Tebboune released more than 5,000 prisoners on March 31 but kept prisoners of conscience and leaders of the hirak imprisoned, then subsequently imprisoned journalists and activists. It even passed a controversial penal law, that also covers fake news, and may be used to justify actions against journalists.

The regime wishes to see an end to the Hirak, and rejects accusations of totalitarianism by insisting freedom and a democratic climate exist in Algeria.

Tebboune’s actions contradict his praise for the ‘blessed’ hirak and his promises of instituting the rule of law. In proclaiming the measures, the government has shown disappointing leadership, acting in an authoritarian fashion.

Tebboune also declared proudly that Algeria was fully prepared to fight the coronavirus epidemic, an optimistic claim given the country has only 400 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, or one per 100,000 people. Despite hundreds of billions of hydrocarbon dollars accumulating during the Bouteflika-era, Algeria’s health system ranks 173 out of 195 countries.

Algerians often refer to hospitals as ‘mouroirs’, meaning ‘places for the dying’. Not only has the state failed to build modern hospitals but basic hygienic conditions are lacking, and government officials prefer being treated overseas. A 2014 project to build five university hospitals was abandoned, leaving the health sector in deplorable shape.

Before Chinese assistance arrived, the glaring lack of equipment to protect caregivers and care for the sick was evident. Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad admitted the health system required a ‘total overhaul’. The president recently stated Algeria’s doctors are among the 'best in the world' but didn't address why almost 15,000 Algerian doctors practice in France.

Strict containment measures are in sync with most countries but implementation is challenging when most people live in overcrowded urban dwellings (the average household consists of 5.9 members).

Water shortages in many areas makes good hygiene and decontamination impossible, while schools and universities find online teaching difficult when many students do not possess laptops or internet connections. And only 20% of Algerians have debit cards in a cash-dominated economy because of low trust in the public-dominated banking sector, making online shopping capability low.

An already declining macroeconomic situation is worsening due to COVID-19. The IMF revised its 2020 estimates for Algeria, forecasting a catastrophic contraction of -5.2% in a country where hydrocarbons account for 93% of export revenues and 60% of its budget.

Foreign currency reserves are now an estimated $55 billion (expected to fall to $44billion by the end of 2020), down from $200 billion in 2014, and Algerian crude has recently traded close to production costs, with the fiscal breakeven oil price at $157.

In line with its historic aversion to external borrowing, Tebboune recently ruled out seeking financial support from the ‘IMF or other foreign banks’, as he argued such borrowing undermines sovereign foreign policy because - when indebted - ‘we cannot talk about either Palestine or Western Sahara’, two causes dear to Algeria. ‘Friendly countries’ - most likely a reference to China - are said to have offered to grant loans which have been declined for now.

The government is forecasted to face a 20% budget shortfall this year, but Algeria’s fiscal response to COVID-19 is actually the largest among the regional hydrocarbon exporters at an estimated 8% of GDP, compared to an average of 3.2%. However, the government revised downwards its 2020 public spending by 50% (a second cut in a month, from an initial 30% reduction), halting state projects and slashing its $41 billion import bill by 25% while expanding agricultural production. National oil company SONATRACH will also cut planned investment by half to $7 billion but plans have been revealed to develop other natural resources including gold, uranium and phosphates.

But recent growth rates are insufficient to create jobs for those entering the labour market. Despite government attempts to support a rather anaemic ‘formal’ private sector, estimates are 700,000 jobs could be lost due to potential bankruptcies from reduced activity and a loss of markets abroad.

Facing potential social unrest and the quasi-preservation of a tired social contract, the government has committed to upholding public sector wages - including for 50% of the civil servants told to stay home - protecting sacrosanct, unsustainable subsidies, and increasing health expenditure to strengthen the capacity to combat COVID-19.

A supplementary finance law will include various measures that support businesses and the economic fallout. However, while the government is to be commended for its efforts to aid businesses, supporting large swathes of the population is challenging as approximately 50% of the workforce operate in the informal economy.

Weak administrative capacity and insufficient data to implement cash transfers makes the planned ‘solidarity allowance’ of 10,000 dinars ($80) for Ramadan difficult to allocate to those who most need it (especially those in the informal sector). Families, communities, and religious organisations continue to be a social safety net.

So COVID-19 has not created new problems, it has merely magnified and exacerbated the numerous inequalities and failures of the Bouteflika regime to sufficiently invest in human security (economic, food, health environmental, personal, community, and political). Typically, whenever oil prices and related earnings dwindle, the political system promises to reform and diversify the economy. Tebboune is repeating this same old tune.

There are positive elements, such as the government’s realization it must initiate genuine reforms. And local enterprises have been successfully producing artificial respirators, surgical masks, and other materials. Algerians, including the Hirak, are showing great social solidarity.

But the government must capitalize on these positive actions by introducing real change. Because, if not, Hirak will certainly be back in force once the crisis is over, and operating in an environment of worsening socioeconomic problems. The medicine of the past will not work.

Islamic State videos have often been associated with savage violence and beheadings. An in-depth scrutiny however reveals another striking feature: that female bodies are absent, blurred or mute. Examining a few Islamic State videos in depth, the article suggests that the invisibility of women in tandem with the ostentatious visibility of male bodies enable gendered and embodied spectators to indulge in homoerotic as well as heterosexual imaginaries. In contrast to studies on visual security and online radicalization which assert that images affect an audience, this article focuses on the interaction between video and audience and argues that spectators are not only rational and emotional but embodied and gendered as well. Islamic State videos do not only attract western foreign fighters through religious–ideological rhetoric or emotional impact but also through gendered forms of pleasure and desire that enable carnal imagination and identification. The article probes the analytical purchase of carnal aesthetics and spectatorship.

In April 2020, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for a global ceasefire in order for communities and states to focus efforts on responding to the coronavirus outbreak. The consequences of armed conflict – including displacement, detention, lack of access to health services and disrupted social infrastructures – mean that those in conflict-ridden areas are amongst the most vulnerable to the virus. Observing international humanitarian law (IHL) could be one way of safeguarding against, at least, the provision of vital medical supplies and personnel for vulnerable groups. Against the backdrop of a growing health and economic emergency that is otherwise dominating government agendas, how do we emphasise the importance of humanitarian action and guarantee - or improve - compliance?

The panellists will discuss the remit and limitations of international humanitarian law and how the pandemic might complicate compliance. What is the framework for humanitarian action under international humanitarian law? What are the challenges to delivering relief? And how has COVID-19 impacted humanitarian action in conflict-ridden areas?

This event is for Chatham House members only. Not a member? Find out more.

This article uses the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) that took place in Tel Aviv to explore how cultural mega-events serve both as political arenas and as tools for identity construction, negotiation and contestation. These processes of identity politics are all conducted across national–subnational–international–transnational levels. The hosting of mega-events fleshes out these multiple processes in a very strong manner. We first discuss the politics of hosting mega-events in general. We then examine the identity politics associated more specifically with the Eurovision Song Contest, before examining in depth the complex forms of identity politics emerging around the competition following the 2018 Israeli victory. We suggest that it is important to study together the multiple processes—domestic, international and transnational—of identity politics that take place around the competition, as they interact with each other. Consequently, we follow the various stakeholders involved at these different levels and their interactions. We examine the internal identity negotiation process in Israel surrounding the event, the critical actors debating how to use the stage to challenge the liberal, western, ‘normal’ identity Israel hoped to project in the contest and how other stakeholders (participating states, national broadcasting agencies, participating artists) reacted to them, and finally we examine the behaviour of the institution in charge, the European Broadcasting Union, and national governments. We contribute to the study of mega-events as fields of contestation, to the understanding of the complex, multilevel nature of national identity construction, negotiation and contestation in the current era, and more broadly to the role that popular culture plays in this context.

In the COVID-19 crisis so far, Cyril Ramaphosa has been widely praised for displaying the decisive leadership so many hoped for when they cast their ballot for him in May 2019. Buttressed by others such as health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize, and on a simple objective to prevent transmission, South Africa has been a lesson to the world. Act fast. Act hard.

Former president Thabo Mbeki’s disastrous response to the HIV crisis cast a long shadow over his legacy, and Ramaphosa has taken note. South Africa has had one of the tightest lockdowns in the world. No exercise. No cigarettes. No alcohol.

The lockdown was imposed when the country had only around 1,000 recorded cases and just two deaths. As a result, transmission from returning travellers has not yet led to an exponential infection rate within the community. The government’s swift reaction has bought much needed time with the peak now seemingly delayed to September or October.

Continental and national leadership

Ramaphosa has also emerged as a key focal point for Africa-wide responses. As current chair of the African Union (AU) he leads the continental engagement with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the various international finance institutions, while South African officials are working with the AU and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on a push for African debt restructuring.

He has also been active in trouble shooting to unlock external assistance to the continent, including from China and Russia. Appointing special envoys is typical of his boardroom-honed leadership style.

International and regional partnerships are vital for resilience and the arrival of 217 Cuban doctors to South Africa is strongly reminiscent of the liberationist solidarity of the Cold War era. And regional economies remain dependent on South Africa to protect their own vulnerable citizens. Following the 2008 financial crisis, it was South Africa’s regional trading relationships that remained robust, while trade with its main global partners in China and the US dropped.

Despite the plaudits, Ramaphosa remains vulnerable to challenge at home, notably around his failure to stimulate South Africa’s moribund economy. On the eve of lockdown, Moody’s joined its peers Standard and Poor’s and Fitch in giving South Africa a below investment grade credit rating. The move was a long time coming. Long mooted economic reforms were slow to materialise, and South Africa had fallen into recession.

Ramaphosa depends on a small core of close advisors and allies, initially united in apparent opposition to the kleptocratic rule of President Jacob Zuma and the deep patronage networks he created within both the party and the state. But this allegiance is being tested by economic reality. Support within the party was already drifting prior to the crisis.

Disagreements are not just technocratic – there are big ideological questions in play around the role of the state in the economy, the level of intervention, and its affordability, with key government figures sceptical of rapid market reforms. Energy minister and former union stalwart Gwede Mantashe is wary of job losses, and minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan protective of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Before coronavirus hit, Ramaphosa seemed content to allow these policy disputes to play themselves out with little decisive intervention.

Slow progress on reform, against worsening economic performance, left Ramaphosa and his allies exposed. In January the president missed the UK’s African Investment Summit in order to assert control over a party meeting at which it was expected his detractors would seek to remove Gordhan.

COVID-19 has sharpened thinking

As the independently assertive - and eminently quotable - pro-market reformist finance minister Tito Mboweni stated, ‘you can’t eat ideology’. Accelerated reform and restructuring is required if the government turns to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance.

For the first time, Gordhan has been forced to deny a bailout to beleaguered state airline South African Airways (SAA), and the government’s lockdown bailout of R300 billion has been applauded by business. Much like the fiscal stimulus and recovery plan of 2018, it relies on smart spending, targeting sectors with high multiplier effects. It also includes significant reserve bank loans.

But it has been criticised for not doing enough to help the most vulnerable. There is considerable fear of what could happen when the virus takes hold in South Africa’s townships and informal settlements where social distancing is almost impossible, basic toilet facilities are shared, and HIV and TB rates high.

There are mounting concerns of the humanitarian cost of a prolonged lockdown, and the government has been faster than others in implementing a tiered lockdown system, trying to get people back to work and keep the economy afloat.

South Africa has been criticized by the UN for the use of lethal force by security forces in enforcing lockdown and, in a society plagued by corruption, there are fears legislation to stop the spread of false information could be used to restrict legitimate reporting on the virus response or other issues.

COVID-19 shines a spotlight on societies’ fault-lines worldwide. South Africa is often touted as having one of the highest levels of inequality in the world but, in a globalized economy, these divisions are international as much as they are local.

Resilience comes from within, but also depends on regional and global trading and financial systems. South Africans and international partners have long recognised Ramaphosa’s leadership qualities as an impressive voice for the global south.

But he must also be an advocate for South Africa’s poor. This crisis could accelerate implementation of his landmark pro-poor National Health Insurance and Universal Health Care programmes. Or the hit of COVID-19 on top of South Africa’s existing economic woes could see them derailed entirely. Ramaphosa must push through economic reforms at the same time as managing COVID-19 and rebuilding trust in his government.

Summary

• Agricultural subsidies, a mainstay of government policy, have a large part in shaping production and consumption patterns, with potentially significant effects as regards poverty, food security, nutrition, and other sustainability concerns such as climate change, land use practices and biodiversity.
• There are multiple types of direct and indirect support provided by governments to various actors in the agricultural sector; and in terms of political economy, there are complex dynamics underpinning the policies that sustain these subsidies.
• Overall, subsidies targeting producers have the most significant effect on production, and the greater trade-distorting effect. These subsidies promote domestic production and discourage imports, leading to overproduction that is largely disposed of on the international market, with the help of export subsidies. This can tend to intensify negative environmental agricultural practices, such as cultivating marginal land, unsustainable types of intensification, or incentivizing excessive pesticide and fertilizer use.
• On the other hand, producer subsidies that are not tied to output of a specific commodity (i.e. delinked) have far fewer distorting impacts and could help to deliver sustainable outcomes. For example, this type of subsidies can require crop diversification or be linked to conservation of permanent grassland.
• Subsidies that enable transfers to consumers, for example through food stamp programmes, also serve to delink production from consumption, can foster healthier diets, can play an important role in delivering food accessibility and security among low-income groups, and can represent one of the less trade-distorting subsidies.
• If subsidies are to be reformed to help promote healthier diets and encourage more sustainable production, it is essential to understand not only the type and amount of support that key countries provide, but also the domestic dynamics that can shape such policies.
• While price support, input subsidies or investment aids remain the central pillars of programmes in large developing countries such as Brazil, China or India, other economies – notably including the EU and Japan – focus on direct payments, support for general services and set-aside schemes, as well as significant border protection. The US, for its part, has tended to focus on subsidized insurance schemes and food programmes for poorer consumers.
• If subsidies are to deliver policy objectives, their design and implementation should delink production from consumption. For example, consumer subsidies designed to deliver nutrition and food security, or payments for environmental services to enable more environmentally friendly production systems, could prove to be the most effective, least trade-distorting means of achieving more sustainable and equitable agricultural production.
• The political economy of food means that the removal of subsidies is often highly sensitive, and tends to be met with significant resistance. However, reform that delinks support from production through a gradual transition process could ultimately prove successful in delivering effective subsidy schemes.
• Effective subsidy schemes must by design be truly result- and performance-based, supported by robust and objective indicators. At the same time, engaging multiple actors along key commodity value chains – including leading importing and exporting countries, traders and transporters – could lead to the development of international, commodity-specific arrangements that are able to deliver effective nutrition and sustainability goals.