During the ongoing pandemic, civil society’s role is highly significant in reaching out to the most vulnerable communities as well as groups that face the highest degree of socio-economic marginalization, namely migrants, minorities, and women. According to an opinion piece by Andrew Firmin, who is editor-in-chief of global civil society alliance, the COVID-19 pandemic has only exposed problems that were already existent – it did not create new ones. For the past few decades, civil society has been putting alternative plans to fix these problems to expand rights, make economies fairer and reduce inequalities. For instance, clean water and good hygiene is considered to be the most simple and basic requirement needed to combat the spread of the new virus, and yet, many communities even before the pandemic lacked access to running water or facilities for hand washing. What the COVID-19 pandemic has done is exacerbate these problems; it revealed the urgency for a community-led approach that places greater reliance on bottom-up civil society groups to ensure more efficient responses. Egyptian Red Crescent’s Story Most recently, Egypt has seen a great example of supporting civil society represented by the Egyptian…
Civil Society During COVID-19: Supporting Vulnerable Communities Through the Egyptian Red Crescent
June 10, 2020
