Alternatives

The inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines that we see today must be situated within the historical context of colonialism, global capitalism, and the othering of the Global South. The effects of these structural factors have resulted in an exclusive preoccupation with profitmaking through vaccine manufacturing at the expense of humanitarian concern. The deliberate neglect in the vaccination of those in the Global South will enable the virus to survive and mutate in marginalized parts of the world. Notably, in our globally-connected world, this neglect will provide opportunities for new variants to flourish and spread, thus contributing to the likely emergence of new pandemic threats in the future. This paper is part of the SPE Theme on the Political Economy of COVID-19.

Mobilizing the social infrastructure of informal settlements in infectious disease response – The case of Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa

The growth of social precarity - particularly in the Global South - has meant that those living in informal settlements typically face a wide range of threats on a day-to-day basis due to the lack of basic welfare, social services and infrastructure, normally provided by the state. In the relative absence of formal infrastructures, people informally forge their own connections, capacities and opportunities so that they are able to access the social support they requirewhen needed. Recognizing this trend, this paper argues that there is a greater need for epidemic program planners to recognize and leverage the potential social infrastructure of informal communities and self-governance mechanisms during a disease epidemic. This need highlights the importance of tapping into already existing networks of social capital that can be readily mobilized during an epidemic to achieve a more rapid response. The empirical basis of our arguments draws primarily on qualitative research in informal settlements of Freetown, Sierra Leone and Monrovia, Liberia, following the 2014–16 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreaks. Our research reveals that distrust in government and inadequacies in the official response were identified as primary factors accounting for the severity of the EVD outbreaks in informal settlements. Overall, the research stresses the importance of adopting community-based approaches to infectious disease response that explicitly builds on context-specific knowledge pertaining to locally-based informal social arrangements, governance mechanisms and the local political history in which the informal settlement is embedded.