An unequal pandemic: insights and evidence from communities and civil society organisations
This report is not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the realities experienced during the pandemic by people who have been marginalised or overly critique government responses to COVID-19. Instead, the focus is on using insights from communities and CSO data to motivate more inclusive COVID-19 pandemic responses and recoveries and demonstrate the value of this data. People who have been marginalised have made critical contributions to the COVID-19 pandemic response: providing practical support to families, friends and peers (including food parcels); providing mutual financial aid; and translating or sharing official information. People who have been marginalised have demonstrated extraordinary resilience, adapting to the pandemic’s effects, including finding alternative sources of income.
Effective COVID-19 pandemic responses and recoveries require a comprehensive understanding of both the impact of COVID-19 on people who have been marginalised and the strategies used by communities to adapt to and manage these impacts. Data collected by communities and civil society organisations (CSOs) can increase the visibility of people and groups overlooked by official data, improving understanding oftheir situations and coping strategies. Insights in this report highlight that official data provide an inadequate picture of communities experiencing marginalisation in this pandemic. The insights also indicate the enormous challenges that people who have been marginalised have had to respond to, often without adequate support from governments.