Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) was a three-year initiative funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) that brought together 20 projects conducting research in 42 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East to understand the socioeconomic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, improve existing responses, and generate better policy options for recovery.

IDS provided knowledge translation support to CORE research partners, to maximise the learning generated across the research portfolio and deepen engagement with governments, civil society, and the scientific community.

IDRC launched a call for proposals early in 2020 under a rapid response mechanism, responding to the urgent need for reliable, contextually grounded local data and evidence to inform appropriate responses to this global pandemic. The 20 funded projects worked across three thematic focus areas: macro-economic policy; supporting essential economic activity, protecting workers and small producers; and promoting democratic governance and effective, accountable responses.

Alongside these rapid response research projects, IDS supported the research initiative to promote and capture learnings of and beyond individual projects, which in turn aimed to guide national, regional, and global policies and actions, and foster peer-to-peer learning and exchange to build capacity of the CORE cohort. This project also included a reflective learning component, generating findings on pandemic support.

Visit the CORE website