The Welfare Implications of COVID-19 for Fragile and Conflict-Affected Areas

Understanding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on households’ welfare in areas at theadmin-1 level subject to fragility, conflict, and violence is important to inform programs and policies in thiscontext. Harmonized data from high-frequency phone surveys indicate that, at the onset of the pandemic, a higherfraction of households in areas affected by fragility, conflict, and violence reported income declines and a higherfraction of respondents reported that they had stopped working since the beginning of the crisis. Households inareas affected by fragility, conflict, and violence were far less likely to report receiving government assistance thanthose in other areas. These findings suggest that the initial effects of the pandemic exacerbated preexistingeconomic gaps between areas affected by fragility, conflict, and violence and other areas, indicating that an even largereffort will be necessary in areas affected by fragility, conflict, and violence to recover from COVID-19, withimplications for funding needs and policy as well as program design.