'Let communities do their work’: the role of community mutual aid and self-help groups in the Covid-19 pandemic response

Author(s)
Carstensen, N., Mudhar, M. and Munksgaard, F.S.
Publication language
English
Pages
27pp
Date published
01 Jan 2021
Publisher
Disasters
Type
Articles
Keywords
COVID-19, Response and recovery

How to respond quickly, effectively, and sensitively to large-scale crises is debated at length in the aid sector. Institutional focuses on projects and outcomes have led to abundant literature on the efficacy of external interventions, while the actions of individuals and communities to meet their own needs remain under researched. This paper seeks to close the gap by joining global trends and specific case studies to explore the scale, breadth, and characteristics of citizen and community-led responses to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020–21. Using mixed methods, it argues that mutual aid, self-help, and other spontaneous community measures were vital to the early response to Covid-19 globally. Such endeavours have limitations, however, which can be strengthened with the right national and international support. The paper concludes by calling on authorities and aid actors to widen their understanding of ‘first response’ and provide mean-ing ful support to mutual aid and local self-help initiatives now and in the future.