Trust in authorities – the golden ticket to successful COVID-19 vaccine roll-out in conflict settings

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought along with it massive challenges related to health response, socio-economic impacts, and information sharing; and communities in conflict face additional hurdles in maintaining stability during this period. To mitigate the mutual influence of conflict dynamics and COVID-19 response, Search for Common Ground (Search) has partnered with the European Union to produce research on a quarterly basis addressing key themes faced across conflict-affected countries. Each report includes concrete recommendations for maintaining the credibility of pandemic response efforts, minimizing the negative effects of the pandemic on conflict dynamics, and identifying opportunities for collaboration. This first thematic report explores the evolution of trust in government authorities in conflict-affected societies in the context of a pandemic, including causes and potential consequences of mistrust and how this may impact the future roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine in conflict-affected settings.

Understanding (Mis)Trust in Government Authorities During a Pandemic

Governments of conflict-affected countries are struggling to balance between containing the spread of COVID-19 and imposing pandemic-related restrictions and protocols while, at the same time, attempting to avoid severe economic deterioration and contend with ongoing conflicts and other consequential crises. This balancing act requires effective collaboration between and among diverse actors to ensure the success of COVID-19 response efforts, and trust in government authorities remains central to this kind of collaboration as well as creating the needed legitimacy and trust in pandemic response efforts.

As the world begins to prepare for a vaccine roll-out, levels of trust in governments will affect their ability to credibly and reliably roll-out a vaccine in the coming months. Across the conflict-affected countries in which Search is implementing pandemic response programming, citizens largely lack trust in national government authorities’ pandemic response efforts. Mistrust in government authorities in these countries stems from a variety of issues, as outlined in Graph 1 below, at the heart of which are misinformation that fuels falsehoods and misperceptions about
the pandemic, combined with already-weak governance systems and service provision across overburdened health, humanitarian, and development sectors. While there is ample opportunity to address these challenges, current low rates of confidence in governments in conflict-affected settings are concerning and could potentially undermine the vaccine acceptance needed to reach herd immunity.

To cite this report:
Search for Common Ground, Trust in authorities – the golden ticket to successful COVID-19 vaccine roll-out in conflict settings, January 2021.