COVID-19 Response: Resisting Repression; Recovering Together

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are development partners in their own right. They are well-placed to monitor development progress, assert transparency and accountability to governments and institutions, and respond to humanitarian emergencies. Their critical role in development cooperation has never been as important as in this time of pandemic. From local to global, CSOs readily and rapidly responded to the call of solidarity, despite the shrinking and even criminalizing of civic space in many authoritarian, developing countries.

Reality of Aid – Asia Pacific (RoA-AP) thus provides this space to its members to narrate their struggles, best practices, and lessons learned, as well as share recommendations as they responded to the pandemic. As this global health and economic crisis continues to unfold, the experience and expertise of CSOs on the ground are much needed in order to facilitate a recovery that puts people at the core; that is based on human rights.

COVID-19 only exposed the structural inequalities of the current world order. Now is an opportune time for development actors to heed the demands of CSOs; of the poor and marginalized to reverse the status quo that favors the corporitization of development. Only then will we be able to build a truly just and democratic society.