The April 2020 issue of Thinking Aloud focuses on “National and Regional Responses to COVID-19 Global Crisis”. The first-page article titled “Regional Response in South Asia to COVID-19 Driven Global Crisis” emphasizes the need for regional cooperation in South Asia and rejuvenating the SAARC process to combat the crisis brought by COVID-19. In South Asia, despite significant potentials, regional integration and cooperation processes have been low. Historically, there is a serious lack of mutual trust among most of the nations. However, a common crisis, like the one brought by COVID-19, can bring these countries together. The second and third pages of this issue present three articles. The article titled “COVID-19: Economic Perils and the Next Budget” affirms that the impacts of COVID-19 on economic growth, job losses and upsurge in poverty are expected to be large. Bangladesh’s government has proposed a series of measures and stimuli to buttress the deleterious https://iabdm.org/prednisone-online/ consequences of the COVID-19. Effective and timely disbursement of funds will be decisive to tackle the economic and social perils of COVID-19. The article on “Ecological Devastation and Poverty: Lesson from COVID-19 Episode” states that the development efforts to eradicate poverty may be seriously disrupted and delayed by the eruption of COVID-19. The government will need to have quick, clear and decisive responses to mitigate the disruption caused by this outbreak. The article titled “Will Mitigation of Trade Bottlenecks Pave the Way towards Achieving the SDGs?” highlights that being a resource-constrained nation, Bangladesh can use trade as the key driving force to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The fourth page covers the events that took place in February and March.
