To answer your second question, I think it depends on the government department in question. I work for a foreign ministry (NZ), and almost all hands are on deck for COVID-19 response. Most countries are having massive consular emergencies, trying to get nationals back home, responding to questions from in-country non-nationals, navigating all of the border complexities (think of people transiting countries, families with mixed residency status, etc.). I cannot speak for all governments, but here this effort is requiring resource from across the business. This has an impact on all work being done; we have people backfilling, and backfilling the backfilling, but some work is indefinitely postponed. Every govt department will be affected in its own way (sorting economic packages for business; dealing with tourists who are still here; sorting out school policy; ensuring food and other supply chains are stable; etc.).
I work on a multilateral desk (UN relationship management), and BAU has slowed to a trickle. As Pam noted, UN meetings are being scaled down, postponed, or cancelled. Some processes related to those meetings (e.g., informals, regional consultations) are happening, although at a slower pace. Multilats are also shifting their focus to COVID-19 matters - how this manifests will vary by each agency. Apologies for writing in haste but hopefully a view from a government is helpful. Wendy On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 12:38 PM Peter M Haas <[email protected]> wrote: > Has anyone got any suggested feeds that cover all the other issues that we > used to study? Has the media become corona obsessive, or have governments > and other actors stopped business as usual? > > I regularly follow the FT, NYT, WP, FP, and nada. > > > > Peter M Haas > > Professor & Graduate Program Director > > 514 Thompson Hall > > Department of Political Science > > UMASS Amherst > > Amherst MA 01003 > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "gep-ed" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/1d1b01d600a2%24f1b98ea0%24d52cabe0%24%40polsci.umass.edu > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/1d1b01d600a2%24f1b98ea0%24d52cabe0%24%40polsci.umass.edu?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "gep-ed" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/gep-ed/CAKu%3Do17%2BTdZS7ucQLSXiNHqgK6xYVwGCJdbE%3D8F9cjWaYKZHaQ%40mail.gmail.com.
