The Netherlands Security & Rule of Law Policy in light of the COVID-19 Pandemic – Expert Consultation

Tuesday 12 May, DSH and KPSRL organized an Expert Meeting on the possible impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Security & Rule of Law as relevant to Dutch Development Cooperation policy.

Broadly, shared analyses entailed:
- The way in which governments respond to COVID shows the importance of SRoL in this time and as the impact of the pandemic seeds longer-term trends;
- Facilitate top-down (from central to local) capacity building with governments and bottom-up transparency and accountability mechanisms in cooperation with informal actors, incl. (modern) influencers;
- Support inclusive judicial processes to address abuses and socio-economic recovery;
- Coordinate with like-minded donors and regional actors to fill the gap left due to politicized and non-multilateral aid.

Currently, ways are explored to integrate these findings in (the implementation of) Dutch policies. Concrete examples are the MFA’s Rule of Law narrative on COVID-19 and the internal ‘Fragile States Working Group’ with Embassies on COVID-19.