India – Covid Assessment & Response Dashboard (I-CARD)

Dr Caroline Dyer, School of Politics and International Studies, Faculty of Social Science

Covid-19 Rapid Action Fund

COVID-19 has engendered great uncertainty about ill-health/mortality/capacity of healthcare systems, consequent patterns of hunger/destitution, deep economic insecurity, and emerging/heightened vulnerabilities. Response efforts in India are hampered by uncertainties about such patterns, and information gaps. Because resources and capacities are limited, it is essential to know which issues, population groups, and geographic areas should be the focus of responses. No information base to guide sharp targeting is currently available.

The India – Covid Assessment & Response Dashboard (I-CARD), developed with initial funding by Azim Premji University, provides information about micro-regions, over time, regarding critical issues faced by vulnerable groups, and focuses on health/mortality, hunger/destitution and deep economic insecurity.

The I-CARD delivers economic and societal impact by making credible, consistent, comparable information of the on-ground situation available to local organisations, and supporting tailored, effective COVID-19 response and action. It enables analysis of which areas are relatively worse off regarding COVID response in a micro-region (cluster of blocks or district); which issues require the most urgent attention in a micro-region; and how the is situation changing over time. It will also capture trends in COVID-19 related to vulnerability and support. This project seeks to review this information to create a dashboard.

Dr Caroline Dyer can be contacted by email: C.Dyer@leeds.ac.uk