Living through the COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact and Lessons on Dietary Behavior and Physical Well-Being

The aim of this review is to highlight the spectrum on which human behavior has been affected by blanket restriction measures and on a wider scale, the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the human behaviors that have been impacted by the COVID-19 lockdown are dietary behavior and nutrition, food options and food delivery usage, physical activity and sedentary behaviors. This is important in planning effective public health strategies with minimal detriment to all subsets of society as well as improving the distribution of government aid to populations that are more severely affected. Our main purpose is to present the literature from a rapidly growing pool of scientific research to hopefully enable a better and more comprehensive understanding of the effects of this pandemic and the lessons learnt from the accompanying restrictions, as well as policy recommendations that can be made in national pandemic responses in the future.

Poverty Attributions and Emotions Associated With Willingness to Help and Government Aid

This study aims to understand how willingness to help people in poverty and the agreement with providing government aid are connected to emotions and attributional processes, in a country with a high poverty rate such as Argentina. Differences in poverty attributions and emotions among self-reported social class are also analysed. A total sample of 331 secondary-school students completed self-administered questionnaires. Correlations and regression analyses showed that, whereas emotions such as compassion, empathy and pity seem to motivate helping behaviours, explanations as to the cause of poverty, rather than emotions, are closely associated with an agreement to providing government aid. However, low levels of anger seem to be required to endorse both helping behaviours and agreement to providing government aid. On the other hand, respondents who self-identify as belonging to upper classes report more anger and use fewer structural explanations to understand poverty than lower-classes respondents. We propose that future research analyse a greater variety of helping behaviours towards people in poverty and types of government intervention in the global south.

Vulnerability and resilience of the road transport industry in Poland to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis

The research aims to examine the vulnerability and resilience of road transport enterprises in Poland to a crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In theory, we refer to the Schumpeterian perspective of creative destruction. In the empirical analysis, survey data on 500 transport companies randomly selected from the database were used. We estimated partial proportional odds models to show the factors responsible for the enterprises' vulnerability and resilience to unforeseen shock. The perspective refers to the total sample size and the division into two subgroups: micro and small and medium enterprises. To justify the results, we calculated a set of statistical indicators and tests. These models enable separating enterprises according to the vulnerability level. Transport enterprises occurred significantly vulnerable to the COVID-19 crisis, particularly the demand shock. The only factor that influenced resilience was the decrease in fuel prices, which allowed a cost reduction. The crisis showed that government aid was helpful in the short run, particularly for micro and small enterprises. The medium-sized enterprises were more resilient than micro and small ones. We formulated several recommendations to help transport enterprises to adjust in the medium term.

The impact of changes to the New Zealand aid policy on non-governmental organisations

<p>The election of the National Party Government in 2008 led to a significant reshaping of the New Zealand aid programme. The changes became the subject of strong criticism from the New Zealand aid community in terms of the main policy underpinnings, funding schemes for (Non-Governmental Organisation) NGOs and the altered relationships between the government and development NGOs. While the literature reveals some critical observations about such changes, not much is known about the impacts of New Zealand’s Official Development Assistance (NZODA) policy on New Zealand development NGOs. This research aims to better understand the impacts of the changes to NZODA policy on the NGO sector to improve knowledge about the subject that could be applied in order to strengthen the long-term partnership and increase the effectiveness of NZODA. To achieve this goal twenty one New Zealand NGOs were interviewed regarding their views on the policy, impacts on NGO operations and policies, effects on in-country partners and relationships with the government. The criticisms of the aid community were also analysed and compared with the research findings. The research findings showed that the expressed views of NGOs indicted a wide variety of opinions on the policy changes and there was a diverse range of negative, neutral and sometimes positive views on the effects on NGOs. While the National Government’s policy agenda has dramatically affected development work of NGOs and their relationships with the government, NGO policies were less affected in some aspects. It is concluded that, whilst the relationship between the official government aid programme and the NGOs has been altered and adversely affected, there is still the basis for an effective partnership that can be reshaped and strengthened in future.</p>

The impact of changes to the New Zealand aid policy on non-governmental organisations

<p>The election of the National Party Government in 2008 led to a significant reshaping of the New Zealand aid programme. The changes became the subject of strong criticism from the New Zealand aid community in terms of the main policy underpinnings, funding schemes for (Non-Governmental Organisation) NGOs and the altered relationships between the government and development NGOs. While the literature reveals some critical observations about such changes, not much is known about the impacts of New Zealand’s Official Development Assistance (NZODA) policy on New Zealand development NGOs. This research aims to better understand the impacts of the changes to NZODA policy on the NGO sector to improve knowledge about the subject that could be applied in order to strengthen the long-term partnership and increase the effectiveness of NZODA. To achieve this goal twenty one New Zealand NGOs were interviewed regarding their views on the policy, impacts on NGO operations and policies, effects on in-country partners and relationships with the government. The criticisms of the aid community were also analysed and compared with the research findings. The research findings showed that the expressed views of NGOs indicted a wide variety of opinions on the policy changes and there was a diverse range of negative, neutral and sometimes positive views on the effects on NGOs. While the National Government’s policy agenda has dramatically affected development work of NGOs and their relationships with the government, NGO policies were less affected in some aspects. It is concluded that, whilst the relationship between the official government aid programme and the NGOs has been altered and adversely affected, there is still the basis for an effective partnership that can be reshaped and strengthened in future.</p>

Policy Framework for Transatlantic Peace Deal on Iran

This research aims to explore the policy framework for the transatlantic peace deal with Iran focused on 2014-2020 era. As there have been calls and initiatives among leading European powers and the US in securing a transatlantic strategy for Iran. In a stable Multilateral Non-Proliferation Pact, The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) led by the European Union (EU) has reported immense success within its first few weeks of adoption (Paolo Magri, Annalisa Perteghella, 2017). It was also hoped that the EU and the United States (US) would open the door to deal with other pending problems with Iran (Adebahr, 2017). Europe and Iran: The nuclear deal and beyond. Routledge.. The Atlantic Ocean Council (ACOE), the European Leadership Network, and the European External Relations Council had planned another scheme abroad in recent months. This scheme takes into account warnings about the unraveling of the JCPOA and various sources of regional instability and government aid to traditional Middle Eastern citizen communities. This study focuses on the advancement of proposals for JCPOA security, regional peace, and improvement for the E3 and the European Union, and individuals who work with the strengthened US Organization to establish contacts with Iran. The research assesses the preparations for lifting of transatlantic sanctions against Iran, as well as the agreements reached between Iran and other signatories. This study follows descriptive analysis depending on data, which is gathered, from a number of scientific publications, published documents, magazines, and reputable websites. Thus, this paper seeks to investigate on the US-Iran peace impacts on the political stability in the region and the main challenges that the peace deal encounter.

Community Development, Local Wisdoms, and Ineffective Government Aid: The Case of Lombok Post-Disaster House Reconstruction Project

Despite the high frequency of disasters, post-disaster development projects in Indonesia have yet been implemented effectively. Such may not be easily reflected through the number of aid projects given, for the reality is much more complex. This article believes that the significance of development projects should be assessed from the aid recipients' perspective. The excess rebuilding back in Aceh's 2004 post-disaster case is one example that shows the importance of paying attention to recipient needs from their perspective rather than aid giver perceptions. The post-disaster condition in Lombok back in 2018 could serve as an example to show the effectiveness of post-disaster development in Indonesia recently. In accordance, this article aims to show how the post-disaster community development programs implemented by multi-stakeholders in Indonesia, especially government-initiated ones, have yet successfully fulfilled Lombok post-disaster victims' needs. The article also found that active initiation from the locals and careful attention to local potentials and wisdom is crucial to determine post-disaster development's success. Such a conclusion is based on the assessment of whether the programs have fulfilled community development principles, in addition to satisfying the victim's human security.