This policy note was prepared at the request of Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in support of its Global Trends Initiative. The note is reprinted as a CGD note with the permission of the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs. All opinions are the authors’ alone. The authors are grateful to Mark Plant, Chief Operating Officer of CGD Europe and Director of Development Finance, and Rachael Calleja, CGD Senior Research Associate, for their comments and suggestions.

Introduction

COVID-19, overlaid on existing global challenges, is the biggest stress test that international development cooperation has ever faced. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was billed as “our common interest to ensure our common survival.” That is no longer just an aspirational sentiment. Whilst no one can yet predict whether COVID-19 itself, as against the damage to economies and livelihoods triggered by policy responses to it, will ultimately prove the bigger driver of the intervening excess deaths and other hardships, we can assume the indirect effect will dominate in many low-income countries and poorer communities over the long term.

Report by the Centre for Global Development