Efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 have led to a series of knock-on effects. Some measures have contributed to increased social conflict and violence. Understanding how to sus-tain peace, while implementing measures that had drastic psycho-socioeconomic impacts has been challenging for countries around the world. This policy brief looks at Colombia, a country with some success in the management of the pandemic, and highlights lessons learned on how the United Nations can support governments to be conflict sensitive when a country is hit by an external shock such as the COVID-19 crisis.

This piece is the second part to our analysis published in early April on what it would take to maintain international unity on Ukraine. In the first analysis, we noted the large number of countries that abstained from or voted against the resolution suspending Russia’s membership in the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, including nine out of the ten most populous countries in the world. We identified four reasons why many countries in the Global South are concerned about the West’s approach to Ukraine: their public opinion, which in some countries trends against NATO; anger over double standards; the adverse impact of the war socially and economically; and what is viewed as an over-domineering process of lobbying for support.