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The impact of COVID-19 has exposed challenges to the concept of social resilience as a guiding principle steering how society can respond positively to crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic has bolstered the case for large-scale government intervention in the economy and in ensuring social welfare. It has thrown into further doubt the neoliberal notion that shrinking the public sector to empower the private market will deliver optimal social and economic outcomes.

The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SPDI) provides the global sustainable development community with representation from Pakistan as well as South Asia as a whole. This quarterly publication provides Research and News bulletins on current events affecting Pakistan and surrounding South Asian countries.

The Asia Foundation has worked alongside government partners, civil society, and communities in Nepal for 30 years. In Nepal, the Foundation has a long history of supporting and encouraging peaceful resolution of conflict at the national and subnational levels; enhancing women's rights and security; supporting accountable local governance; and broadening economic opportunity. Building on three decades of programming, the Foundation stands ready to strategically adapt its portfolio given the current context of Covid-19. In trusting and supporting Government of Nepal's (GoN) commitment to economic growth and democracy, the Foundation's Nepal office pursues the following broad thematic areas: education, governance, labor migration and economic recovery, and data and information.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the ensuing economic shock, has prompted governments all around the globe to act swiftly and decisively to mitigate the health and economic impacts of the crisis. Each country has responded in its way, and it is useful to look at these different responses to identify good practices. In this issue, we will be looking at the case studies of Ukraine, Georgia, and Albania, including an analysis of the fiscal measures these countries have taken and an overview of the economic forecasts for 2020 and 2021.

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as a pandemic. Since then, many countries across the six (6) continents imposed temporary partial or full lockdowns to halt mass mobility and contain the spread of the virus. As governments focus their efforts and resources domestically, it is essential to emphasize that cooperation at various levels—bilateral, regional, and international—is crucial to effectively resolve the present global health crisis. Hence, diplomacy plays a vital role in facilitating exchanges among different actors and in coordinating dispersed initiatives towards a collective goal. For the Philippines's Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), realizing the country's foreign policy objectives during a pandemic falls under its three pillars, namely: (i) preserving national security; (ii) promoting economic security; and (iii) ensuring the safety and welfare of Filipinos overseas. This paper seeks to address the question, "How has the DFA advanced Philippine foreign policy amid the COVID-19 crisis?" It will discuss COVID-19-related developments, key efforts by the DFA, and the ways forward.

The Thai government rolled out schemes to finance SMEs and help them weather the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. While these programmes have some merits, there are ways to improve them.

President Joko Widodo has reshuffled his cabinet in a bid to better manage efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and end the country's recession. For the first time, Indonesia will have a health minister who is not a doctor.

Estonia's digital infrastructure and IT savviness, developed since the mid-1990s, helped manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The Baltic state is cushioning the effects of post-globalisation and associated threats with increased international cooperation in digitalisation and cyber governance.

Water security is a prerequisite for the development of a nation. A sustainable and safe water source is essential for human well-being, economic development, ecosystem preservation, and the prevention of water-related hazards. However, about half of the world's population now experiences water scarcity for at least 1 month per year, and the number of affected people is expected to increase to about 4.8 billion–5.7 billion by 2050 (Burek et al. 2016). At present, 41% of the world's population lives in river basins that are under water stress. Rapid population growth, climate change, water pollution, overexploitation of water reserves, industrialization, economic development, and mismanagement of water sources have depleted water sources and changed water ecosystems, causing floras and faunas to become extinct sooner. About 73% of the world's population who now face water scarcity lives in Asia. Despite the development initiatives in the region to tackle the water problem, the rate of scarcity is expected to reduce to only 69% by 2050 (Burek et al. 2016). The water security problem is increasing the number of people below the poverty line—when freshwater sources are lacking, people are forced to opt for alternative sources that are likely to be more expensive because of privatization. Furthermore, polluted water resources and inadequate sanitation facilities can lead to the spread of various waterborne diseases and expose marginalized groups of people to health risks.

This Discussion Paper presents the approach, findings, and recommendations from a desk review of the qualitative research conducted within Results-Based Financing programmes (RBF) under the Health Results Innovations Trust Fund (HRITF). The review included 17 studies conducted in Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The studies reveal a body of high quality work that is consistent with the conceptual framework of RBF schemes, supported by political will, resources, and research capacity. Strengthening the added value of qualitative inquiry in on-going and future qualitative studies may be enabled by small shifts in thinking and practice, in line with a qualitative research paradigm. First, in order to better ground research in an existing country and system specific context, some interrogation of constructs and posited relationships in the existing conceptual framework for intervention/evaluation may be required. Second, to enable more in-depth and richer data that documents working practices and relations under RBF schemes, training of local researchers should place stronger emphasis on entry to the field, gaining trust, building rapport, and sustaining a dialogue with key informants. Third, smaller, more intensive and focused studies targeting fewer sites and smaller samples - but addressing a wider range of methods and informants within the health system - are likely to yield richer data that can support the understanding of how health workers and managers are responding to schemes, and what impact schemes have on service volumes and outputs.

There are great disparities in access to finance across countries and income groups. According to the World Bank Global Financial Inclusion Database, the percentage of adults holding accounts in Asian developing countries stood at only 26.7 percent in 2014, while recording over 93 percent in high-income countries. Meanwhile, far fewer adults hold credit with financial institutions and borrow money from formal financial institutions in low-income countries (8.6 percent) than in high-income countries (18 percent). The account and credit penetration rate is even lower for vulnerable groups such as the poor, women, youth, and rural residents in developing countries. Why does the access to finance matter? Would the enhancement of access to finance benefit economic growth in developing countries and what should the policymakers do to enhance the access to finance? Scholars and policymakers have widely accepted that access to financial services can 1) promote household welfare, 2) encourage the growth of small and medium enterprises, and 3) contribute to sustainable economic growth.

The Country Opinion Survey in Senegal assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Senegal perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral/bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Senegal on 1) their views regarding the general environment in Senegal; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Senegal; 3) overall impressions of the WBG's effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Senegal; and 4) their perceptions of the WBG's future role in Senegal.

This paper evaluates a youth internship program in the Republic of Yemen that provided firms with a 50 percent subsidy to hire recent graduates of universities and vocational schools. The first round of the program took place in 2014 and required both firms and youth to apply for the program. The paper examines the demand for such a program, and finds that in the context of an economy facing substantial political and economic uncertainty, it appears there is an oversupply of graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and a relative undersupply of graduates in marketing and business. Conditional on the types of graduates firms were looking to hire as interns, applicants were then randomly chosen for the program. Receiving an internship resulted in an almost doubling of work experience in 2014, and a 73 percent increase in income during this period compared with the control group. A short-term follow-up survey conducted just as civil conflict was breaking out shows that internship recipients had better employment outcomes than the control group in the first five months after the program ended.

Several government and development partner programs employ different approaches to ensure the inclusion of poor and vulnerable areas and people in Myanmar's development. Buildingon this experience, this note aims to identify feasible options to effectively reach these groups, as government programs expand. Depending on program-specific choices about geographic focus andindividual, household eligibility, identifying poor and vulnerable areas and people in Myanmar can become more evidence-based, effective, and systematic, as better data become available and administrative systems develop. While targeting is currently done by individual programs, there can be important economies of scale in sharing and developing these systems in a coordinated manner so as to support multiple programs.