COVID-19 Updates

As the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the world, close to four billion people in over 90 countries are under mandatory lockdowns. The virus has in its wake taken both tens of thousands of lives and millions of livelihoods. Countries continue to grapple with the challenges of testing, quarantines and lack of medical facilities and equipment. It is also evident that global trade and national economies will take a much worse battering than expected. Focus created this special section of the website to capture some of the impacts of COVID-19 in Asia

Latest Articles/Statements

COVID-19 Impacts on Women’s Economy, Women’s Rights and Livelihood in Thailand

In 2020, Thailand was the first country in the world to detect COVID-19 transmission outside China. Since then, the Government has aggressively exercised executive and judicial measures, especially on the infinite extension of COVID-19 state of emergency decree, to...

India’s Child-care Workers Fight for Recognition and Just Wages

by Ranjini Basu | Mar 3, 2022

Thousands of anganwadi (child-care) workers and helpers are on strike across multiple states in India. These women who are from marginalised backgrounds are India’s frontline warriors in the battle against hunger and child malnutrition. Despite this, they are not...

Grey Economy and Sickly Recovery: Informal Women Workers in Pandemic-Ravaged Philippines

by Galileo de Guzman Castillo | Mar 3, 2022

Last month, on January 27, the Duterte administration’s economic managers released a joint statement declaring, “The door to our economic recovery is now fully open (…) the strong 2021 performance shows us that we are on the correct path to a resilient recovery (…)...

No Recovery Without Justice

by Bianca Martinez | Mar 3, 2022

As the Philippines entered the second year of the pandemic, the Duterte administration geared up towards pursuing economic recovery. Despite peddling optimistic projections for the economy and vague platitudes about “real change for future generations,” the political...

Rebuilding a Democratic Public Economy is a Feminist Issue

by Shalmali Guttal | Mar 3, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic manifested in a world racked with accelerating climate change, recurring financial crises, deepening economic fragility, continuing armed conflicts and shrinking democratic space. These are systemic crises and they are gendered. Strategies and...

Sama-Sama:Music Beyond Borders

by Joseph Purugganan | Mar 1, 2022

AMP3’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic by Joseph Purugganan A year before the pandemic, the Asian Movement for Peoples’ Peace and Progress or AMP3, a collective of artists with a network of socially engaged musicians across Asia, organized a week-long songwriting...

Corporate-Controlled Global Food Supply Chains Must Go

by Walden Bello | Mar 2, 2021

The global food system has been very much front and center in the COVID-19 story. Everyone, of course, is aware that hunger is closely tracking the virus as its wreaks havoc in both the global North and global South. Indeed, one can say that, unlike in East Asia,...

Open Letter to the Biden Administration on the Need for a Pandemic Pivot

by Focus on the Global South Ally/Friend/Partner | Jan 25, 2021

It’s urgent not to return to the previous status quo. It’s time for creative thinking and bold action. Congratulations on your victory in the U.S. presidential election in November. You will be taking office at a critical moment in U.S. and world history. You have an...

RCEP an unjust deal and added burden in the time of a pandemic

by Focus on the Global South Team | Nov 15, 2020

Trade Justice Pilipinas statement on the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement: In the midst of a global pandemic and despite strong peoples’ opposition, governments are set to sign today the Regional Comprehensive Economic...

Asian Network pushes stronger TNC regulations at the UN amidst pandemic

by Focus on the Global South Ally/Friend/Partner | Oct 28, 2020

Amidst the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the negotiations towards a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations and other business enterprises and human rights commenced Monday, 26th of October in Geneva, with participation from States,...

Impacts of COVID-19 on Small-Scale and Traditional Fishers and Fishworkers in India

by Ayantika Das | Oct 8, 2020

Case Study for CSM Covid Report, October 2020 What impacts is COVID-19 (including measures put in place by the authorities) having on food systems, food security and the right to food ? The government of India imposed a 21 day lockdown on the midnight of 23 March...