Society, Economy and Development During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lesson for Emerging Economies

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic impacted with multidimensional crisis has disrupted the functioning of the society, devastated global economy and has debilitated development. The appalling implications varied from country to country depending on their economy, health infrastructure, and socio-political factors. This in turn has also reflected on their responses to the pandemic where a few have fared well and some have catastrophically failed. The challenges are projected to be much severe for the emerging economies with large populations, inadequate health infrastructure, economic instability and inequalities. International bodies such as World Bank, ILO and UN have predicted the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic for the emerging economies in terms of poverty, increasing unemployment, gender inequality and issues affecting the vulnerable groups. This scenario makes it inevitable to analyze the responses of those countries that have successfully managed the challenges and build effective strategies for the future based on the lessons learnt. This symposium is a follow-up of the International Virtual Symposium (IVS) on Pandemics, Climate Change and Growing Inequality: Emerging Paradigm Shift in Helping Professions held on 28.08.2020 in which seven resource persons across the globe enriched hundreds of scholars, faculty members and practitioners; and the National Virtual Symposium II (NVS-II) on Informality, New Forms of Work, Labour Concerns of the Pandemic: Evolving Strategies for Helping Professions organized on 12.09.2020 in which four resource persons from premier institutions of the country enlightened the participants from 33 universities and 43 colleges on the plight of the informal sector. The report has portrayed the keynote address of the five eminent academicians who are teaching at prestigious Institutions across the cities in India. They have shared their perspectives on the impacts of COVID-19 on society, economy, development and the challenges on the emerging economies. The report also encloses the objectives, thrust areas of research and expected outcome from the National Virtual Symposium that aims to call for papers for an edited book proposal on Society, Economy and Development During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for Emerging Economies, which is an attempt to amalgamate knowledge from diverse disciplines and to subsequently develop models and strategies to respond effectively to current challenges and future pandemics.