AFRICA’S GOVERNANCE RESPONSE TO COVID-19 | PRELIMINARY REPORT 2020 responses, the report provides a detailed account of the multilateral measures implemented by the – AU and RECs: ECOWAS, IGAD, EAC, SADC, COMESA. legislative, policy and institutional arrangements necessary for strengthening accountability, effectiveness and inclusiveness of the responses. At the level of the AU, the report recommends, among other things, that member states sign and ratify the African Risk Capacity (ARC) Treaty, which provides a framework for disaster early warning and contingency planning, and disaster insurance for participating states; and that the AU should build risk management financing and resiliency planning into their annual budgetary processes. Global enablers identified in the report have been characterised as either positive or negative, and presented within the framework of political and economic governance with additional focuses on the gendered impact of COVID-19 and the peace and security community (practitioners, humanitarians and peacekeepers), which has expressed concern about the fact that the immediate measures taken in response to the pandemic have implications for livelihoods and conflict. The report therefore recommends that national, regional and continental actors reevaluate, in concrete terms, the design of and approaches to existing conflict management tools and systems at all levels so that they can adapt rapidly to non-traditional threats such as pandemics, climate change and cybersecurity. As regards the Member States, the report recommends, among others, that governments should establish inclusive national response governance and institutional and legislative mechanisms for disaster management; governments should also decentralise responsibilities and capacities for disaster management whilst implementing containment measures within a framework that respects the rule of law and the human rights of citizens. The recommendations have accordingly been presented in three categories: i) Recommendations for the AU; ii) Recommendations for member states; and Recommendations for APRM. Immediate measures focus on generic actions and initial responses of the state to COVID-19 and the medium-term recommendations present the The recommendations for the APRM include a call for the Mechanism to undertake research on state resilience and disasters to inform its interventions and to review the APRM framework to integrate disaster preparedness and management, including revising its base questionnaire to address the governance of disasters. 14