As we have done regularly in connection with complex, multi-factor, and potentially long-term crises, when the COVID-19 crisis began, we launched several processes simultaneously, and in March 2020, we created the COVID-19 Observatory to focus specifically on the pandemic[1].

The Observatory’s first output was a report reviewing the lessons learned from fifteen years of major health crises[2]. This report picked up on many of the points made in a report published in 2010, Mapping of future unintentional risks, which had already warned about this type of health risk[3].

A number of Briefing Notes have subsequently been produced, which fall into three categories:

 

1. The geopolitics and the semantics of the pandemic

 

COVID-19 in different contexts : north and south, urban and rural, by François Grünewald

Clarifying terminology to facilitate public debate, by François Grünewald and Jean-Luc Poncelet

 

2. Technical aspects and strategic parameters

Understanding public health dynamics in the face of uncertainty and the unknown, by Jean-Luc Poncelet

COVID-19, agriculture and food security, by François Grünewald

Detection and warning systems, by Jean-Luc Poncelet, François Grünewald, and Samantha Brangeon

COVID-19: Youth and education: Impacts and options, by Luc Gruget and Olivier Arvisais

Disasters in the time of COVID-19, by François Grünewald and Luc Gruget

 

3. Geopolitics and social economics of the pandemic

COVID-19: are we facing a ‘global social crisis’?, by Johanna Baché

Migration during the COVID-19 crisis: current and future impacts, by Valérie Leon

COVID-19: Interactions between the pandemic and conflict, by François Grünewald and Johanna Baché

Conclusion

COVID-19: lessons not always learned, by François Grünewald

COVID-19 and beyond : Nexus, fragilities and endemicity, by François Grünewald and Jean-Luc Poncelet

 

[1] https://www.urd.org/en/project/covid-19-observatory/

[2] https://www.urd.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200408_Crises-sanitaires_EN_FINAL.pdf/

[3] https://www.urd.org/en/publication/97028/