Indo-Pacific

Afghanistan needs a ceasefire now to battle COVID-19

By Marika Theros and Sahar Halaimzai

COVID-19 will not wait for negotiators to reach a humanitarian ceasefire. This is not the time to place political goals above public health or to exploit divisions. A coordinated plan of action, grounded in a public health perspective and which prioritizes pausing the violence, is necessary in order to save lives. Any actor using the pandemic to score political points or to strengthen their hand at the negotiation table cannot be truly committed to peace in Afghanistan.

It Takes a Village: Helping the Most Vulnerable in Crisis

India’s coronavirus lockdown has sparked an economic pandemic. A collective of community groups and non-profits in Chennai stepped in to help.

Digitizing the dollar in the age of COVID-19

By Michael Greenwald

As the COVID-19 crisis continues to cast a shadow over the future of the global economy, the dollar, while currently surging, finds itself at another larger inflection point; it needs to again prove its worth as the essential global currency.

There is a better way to counter China in multilateral organizations: Lead with allies

By Gerard Araud and Benjamin Haddad

There are plenty of reasons to be underwhelmed with the WHO’s performance in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration’s response to halt funding, however, will have the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than beginning a long overdue debate on Chinese influence over multilateral institutions, it will reinforce the very reason why Chinese influence has grown in the WHO and other institutions: US disengagement.

Coronavirus will worsen India’s non-performing loan problem

By Ketki Bhagwati

The unwelcome arrival of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the accompanying national lockdown is very likely to bring on a fresh wave of non-performing loans as banks resort to credit contraction to preserve capital for future losses.