Scaling-up Activities to Mitigate Against the Spread of the COVID-19 Virus: Appreciating the Role of Local Government Authorities in the Caribbean

Bishnu Ragoonath
Additional contact information
Bishnu Ragoonath: Department of Political Science, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus

Journal of Developing Societies, 2023, vol. 39, issue 4, 509-528

Abstract: In January 2020, several governments in the English-speaking Caribbean not only started sensitizing their populations about the novel coronavirus but triggered various public health provisions that would allow the state to better manage the disease once it arrives within the respective countries. With the confirmation of the first cases, some national governmental systems were primed to act. Central governments across the region announced various policies and strategies, such as the closing of borders and schools as well as lockdowns as was necessary to mitigate the spread of the virus. But whilst attention was focused on what the central government was doing, very little attention was paid to local government activities that supported the central government’s policies. Local governments scaled-up the policies as enunciated by the central government, to ensure a wider geographical reach as well as a more intensive implementation process. Scaling-up also allowed for some expansion beyond the national policies to effect a program to mitigate the spread of the virus. Using examples from across the region, the article appraises the role of local governments in the quest to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: Local government; upscaling; public health; community participation; Caribbean association of local government authorities (CALGA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0169796X231209114 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:39:y:2023:i:4:p:509-528

DOI: 10.1177/0169796X231209114

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Developing Societies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().