Thinking Aloud: Volume VII, Issue 1: June 2020

The June 2020 issue of Thinking Aloud focuses on “COVID-19 Crisis: Economic and Social Challenges”. The first page article titled “COVID-19’s Effect on Poverty and Policy Response in Bangladesh” emphasizes that though Bangladesh experienced significant achievement in poverty reduction over the past decades, success remained to be very fragile to external and internal shocks. Therefore, the ongoing crisis can give the policy makers an opportunity to rethink country’s development and poverty reduction strategies. The second and third pages of this issue present three more articles. The article titled “Challenges of Youths during COVID-19” discusses the additional burdens of the pandemic for the youths who were already suffering due to a low level of education, skill, and employment opportunities. The article suggested formalization of the labor market while upskilling and reskilling the labor force to cope with the short term and long-term impacts of this pandemic. The article on “India amid COVID-19: A SWOC Analytic Review” presents a synoptic review of India’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges (SWOC) in the backdrop of the struggle for life versus livelihood. The article titled “How Would the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect the Education Sector in Bangladesh?” discusses the far-reaching impacts of educational institution closures due to the lockdown. Strict healthcare protocols, active public policy to minimize dropouts, strengthened supplementary nutrition programmes, increased ICT access and allocation in education should be prioritized as policy measurements to mitigate the probable impacts of the pandemic. The fourth page writes about the events organized by SANEM in May 2020.