The coronavirus disease pandemic, while above all a public health crisis, has presented the African continent with unprecedented economic challenges. In order to contain cross-border transmission of the virus, countries have introduced various restrictions to cross-border and transit freight transportation.

Grassroots innovation is a modality of inclusive innovation that enables extremely affordable, niche-adapted solutions to local problems, often unaided by public sector or outsiders.

Among other things, the COVID-19 crisis has called for the reassessment of risks and sourcing criteria in global value chains (GVCs) and for their shortening. This, in turn, has given momentum to discussions on the establishment and strengthening of national and regional supply chains.

Despite an increase in the number of workers commuting between rural and urban areas, much of the literature on worker mobility continues to be migration centric. This paper establishes the importance of rural-urban commuting in India.

In recent years, along with the growing recognition of the rural gender gap in financial access as a key constraint to rural development, research has focused increasingly more towards analysing in depth the financial habits and patterns followed by women in rural areas, in order to produce observations and insights that could foster a more gend

This brief assesses how COVID-19 will affect jobs in Asia and the Pacific and proposes policy actions to manage the impacts.COVID-19 is driving economies into recession, putting many jobs at risk. Up to 242 million full-time jobs could be lost globally, with 70% of these in Asia and the Pacific.

The new UN report examines how COVID-19 has affected eleven countries in South-East Asia and proposes action-oriented recommendations on mitigating immediate impacts and planning pathways out of the crisis.The uneven landscape of social protection systems has placed tackling inequality at the centre of both short and long-term recovery efforts,

Amid last year’s recession, loss of savings, job uncertainty, lockdowns, and the pandemic-related economic and social restrictions, India’s aspirations have been challenged this year. In fact, aspirations across all age groups have shrunk.

To help countries tackle the devastating social and economic dimensions of the pandemic, with a focus on at-risk groups, the UN issued the UN framework for the immediate socio- economic response to COVID-19 (SERF) in April 2020.

COVID-19 & Global Food Security brings together a groundbreaking series of IFPRI blog posts looking at the impacts of COVID-19 and the policy responses.