LIST OF PANELS

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended many productive socio-economic policies and their associated programs towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2030 in many hard-hit countries. With no officially recognized vaccines yet in sight, it has become a lingering threat to the self-imposed SDGs in these countries. This threat is compounded by other natural and man-made disasters. In some less developing countries, the reality is more glaring compared to those in developed countries as the former has to deal with widespread poverty. However, some have managed to retread their paths towards their SDGs through policies that were crafted in the midst of the pandemic, some in a rush to beat the problems and miseries associated with widespread infections.

“Retread,” as used in this panel, means to fix or replace policies rendered inutile by critical events that have significant scope, intensity, time duration, and demand enormous amount of resources just like the on-going pandemic. A public policy is like a car, which is headed towards a certain direction, whose tires got punctured due to blunt objects on the road. To be able to continue the journey, the punctured tires have to be either fixed or replaced. For example, the effect of the pandemic on education, an important SDG area, has triggered debates worldwide on the appropriate policy to balance the need not to disrupt the education of learners vis-à-vis efforts to curb the spread of the virus. In the Philippines, this debate was resolved through the adoption of “blended learning” (i.e., use of online platform and printed educational modules), and change in the school calendar through the enactment of a national law that also took into consideration the typhoon season that could affect internet connectivity and the safety of learners and teachers. 

This panel aims to tackle how public policies and policymaking in COVID-19-affected countries cope/are coping with the issues, problems, and challenges brought by the pandemic vis-à-vis the SDGs. Contextually, it would like to focus on the “retreading” of public policies towards the undisrupted attainment of national SDGs and targets. The panel, therefore, invites abstracts and papers that answer the following questions: In general, how has the COVID-19 pandemic affected public policymaking in hard-hit countries? Are existing public policy theories robust enough to explain these changes in the study and practice of public policy during this pandemic period? If not, what are their weaknesses, loopholes or gaps that warrant further policy research investigation? What could we possibly learn about the practice of public policymaking during the previous pandemic periods in history? On retreading public policies - does policymaking in emergency/crisis situations brought by pandemics produce better public policies suitable for less stable conditions, and whose policy goals and objectives are more attainable, whether in the short- or long-run, compared to the original ones? The panel hopes to answer these questions to be able to fill in possible theoretical lacunae in public policymaking during emergency/crisis situations brought by pandemics, and determine if retreaded policies are better in the attainment of policy goals and objectives, which in this case is along the lines of the SDGs.