A five-nation initiative to blunt the impact of Covid-19 in South Asia combines international scope, local partnerships, and a question: how to prepare the most vulnerable for the next crisis.
Sofia Shakil (00:03):
Actually, we don't want to revert back to the way things were or how communities practice public health measures. We want to change behaviors. We want to see them sustained.
Tracie Yang (00:14):
A crisis lens on the pandemic in South Asia becomes a search for long-term solutions. This week on In Asia, from The Asia Foundation. I'm Tracie Yang.
John Rieger (00:23):
And I'm John Rieger. It's been more than a year. Are we still talking about COVID-19, Tracy?
Tracie Yang (00:28):
Yes, but it's been a year in which development practitioners have started to focus on how societies can learn from the pandemic to become more resilient.
John Rieger (00:37):
Joining us today is the Asia Foundation's Sofia Shakil, she's the head of our Pakistan office and the international coordinator of the South Asia regional project to strengthen community resilience to COVID 19, which is a mouthful. It's an 18-month project to address the immediate and long-term impact of COVID-19 on the most vulnerable populations of Bangladesh, India, Maldivian Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Sofia, welcome to in Asia.
Sofia Shakil (01:04):
Thank you.
Tracie Yang (01:05):
So this is a big project that takes in most of South Asia. What are you trying to do?
Sofia Shakil (01:11):
As John said, it's quite a mouthful, but this project aims to strengthen community resilience, to combat myths and impacts of COVID-19. We are working through our country office networks and partners to reach communities which are most vulnerable through different kinds of interventions. So in one scenario in Pakistan, we've trained community leaders on how to manage public health measures, masks wearing, what are other safe behaviors. In Sri Lanka, we've had interventions to prevent violence against ethnic minority or religious minority groups, because as we've seen, there's a lot of bias that emerges around the origins of COVID-19. A big part of this project is also to raise general public awareness. So we're employing social media to have a wider outreach. We take government policies and programs and we translate them into local languages. So it's a range of interventions, ranging from training to mass awareness campaigns.
John Rieger (02:13):
This project reaches across five countries, and yet many of the practical interventions that you're talking about are street level things like workshops and pamphlets. What is the advantage of having such a regionally comprehensive organization? Why? Are there synergies there?
Sofia Shakil (02:31):
Well, this project is supported by the European Union, and they were looking for a partner that could actually provide interventions across South Asia. Now, as we know, communities and contexts vary across the different countries and even within countries. We've got urban populations, rural populations, we've got different impacts on women. We've got migrant workers and a whole range of issues that are impacting different countries in a different way. So in one context we might be dealing specifically with preventing gender-based violence. In another context, we might just be dealing with how to support migrant workers that have been displaced. And because we have country offices with a lot of local partners and networks, we do have a lot of expertise that understands local context and how to target real issues. So that's the advantage of the Asia Foundation implementing such a large program across such a diverse set of countries and contexts.
Tracie Yang (03:33):
Well, the pandemic can't last forever, in spite of how things may seem right now. Where do you want this project to be when the crisis is over?
Sofia Shakil (03:41):
So when we were first asked to come up with a project design around building community resilience, we thought, okay, you know what, even when the pandemic subsides, certain things were always going to have to be in place. For example, basic health and hygiene awareness. We don't want to revert back to the way things were or how communities practice public health measures. So we want to change behaviors. We want to see them sustained. We saw this program as an opportunity to start addressing some of the more deep-rooted development challenges that communities are faced with.
Tracie Yang (04:16):
So it sounds like your thinking has evolved from making communities COVID resilient to making them more resilient in general.
Sofia Shakil (04:24):
That's absolutely right. If anything that this pandemic has taught us, is that there are some deep-rooted inequities and service delivery that exists across South Asia. There are certain communities that are just more vulnerable to any kind of shock. So this program is managed from a crisis response support lens, but I think the development challenges that we're tackling in our respective country programs are actually going to the core of inadequate access to basic essential services.
John Rieger (04:58):
Sofia, I'm curious, how long have you been in international development?
Sofia Shakil (05:02):
My goodness, since my first job in international developments in 1995.
John Rieger (05:09):
So 115 years basically.
Sofia Shakil (05:11):
Yeah.
John Rieger (05:14):
Well, I mean, so you're a development veteran. So from your perspective, what's new and interesting about this project?
Sofia Shakil (05:22):
I think what's new and interesting about this project is that first of all, we're living in a different era altogether where it's not just us as development practitioners using mobile phones, social media platforms, the actual people we're trying to reach, they're also now plugged in. So we're able to reach the minds of people in a more effective manner. We're also able to connect people across larger distances. So the use of technology is an integral part of this.
Sofia Shakil (05:56):
The other is that this program we're working right from the grassroot level all the way up to the policy level because we're actually taking what government's policies are, let's say vis-a-vis social protections, and we're giving out messages to communities that look, these are assistance programs that the government is providing. But then we find out that on the ground, there's a whole bunch of people that are being left out of the net because they just don't qualify or they weren't registered, or they don't have access. So then we're able to immediately feed that box through the appropriate institutional mechanisms to say that look, there's a whole bunch of people that are being left out of the net.
Sofia Shakil (06:33):
So it's a program which when we talk about in development as an ideal development practitioner, I've always said, it's good to have a comprehensive framework to tackle a problem. We often don't do it because projects end up tackling one or two or three aspects of the entire problem. I think this is a program in which we're able to take a holistic approach.
John Rieger (06:54):
Sofia Shakil, thank you so much for being with us.
Sofia Shakil (06:57):
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Tracie Yang (06:58):
And that's our show for this week. You can read more about the South Asia Resiliency Project by paying a visit to this week's blog.
John Rieger (07:06):
And you can hear more stories like this one from the world of international development by visiting us at InAsia, one word, and subscribing to the InAsia podcast. Don't miss an episode. Until next time, I'm John Rieger.
Tracie Yang (07:18):
And I'm Tracie Yang.
John Rieger (07:19):
Thanks for listening.