Survive, Thrive, or Deprive? Drivers and Outcomes of Resilience During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Malawi

This project examines why some individuals and communities respond better than others to crises, and the longer-term effects on governance and welfare.

It considers three questions: 1) What explains when and how communities implement and enforce policies to mitigate the pandemic´s negative effects?

When/why does this impact poverty and inequality? 2) How do community factors and individuals’ characteristics affect how individuals manage crises? 3) How has the pandemic altered community capital and authority?

We draw on research relating to resilience, public health, and governance to answer these questions, leveraging unique panel data and case studies from Malawi to test hypotheses.

The panel data include face-to-face (F2F) surveys with households and elites conducted in 2019 before the pandemic, three telephone surveys conducted during the pandemic, and a post-pandemic F2F survey.

As one of the poorest populations in the world, with clearly defined and gendered local authority structures, Malawi is particularly well-suited to provide crisis response insights at the individual and community levels.

Moreover, the data allows for pathbreaking research, as this is – to our knowledge – the most rigorous, sustained examination of crisis response.

The findings will yield theoretical understandings of resilience, health crisis response, and authority, while supporting policymakers and development specialists to alleviate poverty and other negative consequences of crises.