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Charter Cities offer a fresh start. We can design the infrastructure for social thriving: good rules as prescribed and built spaces: places to call home, places to gather in company of community, places for education, to build business and offer skilled services where people with education can adapt their skills to new circumstances where there are few to compete and none to displace. Finding builders for the physical infrastructure is probably the easiest part.

Numbers are already too great and we are likely to see more so we need a management plan in place beforehand. From middle class comfort it is difficult to see the socioeconomic disruption this can cause with consequent social unrest. Even well-educated refugees cannot get work at the level they had been operating so sadly seek work among the unskilled whom they often out-compete for placement. Refugees are understandably competitive. Resulting in a discontented displaced native population without the education or psychological skills to make room.

In Australia as elsewhere our civil liberties are being curtailed and new police powers are being introduced. Disruption, uncertainty and distraction contribute to an environment in which corrupt actors can take advantage of the crisis for their own benefit. Decisions can be influenced, contracts and licences granted, purchases made outside of procurement guidelines, and tenders secured without the same level of scrutiny and due diligence that may normally apply. We need to be alert to the granting of special powers to senior politicians that could damage our democracy long-term. It’s never easy to wind back powers once granted. The concentration of power should not, under any circumstances, lead to its abuse. And special powers in response to the pandemic, must only be used for the purposes for which they were granted. (I'm a messenger - this is an extract from a blog by Serena Lillyhwhite, head of Transparency International Australia: https://transparency.org.au/the-health-of-our-democracy-also-needs-protecting-in-a-crisis/)

Many thanks for this thoughtful and comprehensive analysis Terence. I'd like to propose a few other issues for consideration, but first, I couldn't agree more with your cautionary approach towards the 'subsistence safety net'. The presumption that people in the ever-growing urban areas of the Pacific can simply return to practising subsistence agriculture in their 'home' villages has never been more problematic. As you rightly note, there is already pressure on subsistence agriculture and other forms of village land use in many places; and a sudden influx of people from urban areas could create or exacerbate tensions over land and access to natural resources. This will vary significantly from place to place. As for additional issues to think about in relation to the possible impact of the pandemic in the region, the first could be broadly characterised as socio-cultural responses and interpretations. There is a growing body of research exploring how the impacts of so-called 'natural' disasters in the Pacific - such as cyclone Winston in Fiji, the earthquake in PNG's Hela Province in early 2018, and sea level rise - have been shaped by place-based social and cultural factors, often with very significant implications (and not necessarily negative ones). Another case in point is the resurgence in witchcraft and sorcery-related violence in parts of PNG. One could only imagine that if the pandemic takes hold in these areas, especially if there are fatalities, there would likely be an intensification in this sort of violence. Finally, I think it's critical that we don't forget that over the 12 or 18 months (or longer) that the pandemic will potentially afflict the Pacific, the region will continue to face its 'normal' raft of vulnerabilities. While we're almost out of the South Pacific's cyclone season, it's likely that another one will come and go before the pandemic does (plus we're entering the cyclone season for the North Pacific); and there is alway the possibility of an El Nino induced drought (and, in the case of the PNG Highlands, frost) event. In the spirit of hoping for the best but planning for the worse, we should countenance the possibility of significant 'natural' disasters as part of the COVID-19 scenarios that are being discussed. Thanks again Terence!

Thanks so much Holly for your future looking and positive comments. It would be great to work with you and others to increase engagement with our nation's representatives, their teams and Australians in general to apply systems thinking to these complex problems at home and abroad.

Thank you Jonathan, for your insightful comments. I look forward to the day when farmers and public health specialists work together as co-contributors to a healthy society and preventive medicine activities receive the modest but essential support required.

Thank you Julie, I couldn't agree more with your comments.

Thanks Robyn for highlighting the increased risks of COVID-19 infection to resource-limited settings where the pandemic’s impacts will potentially be devastating. As you so rightly said, women and children are the ones already suffering the most from malnutrition and we must address and mitigate the gendered impact of the COVID-19 infection as an equal emergency during the crisis, while also building resilience through nature regeneration, gender equity and social justice in the long-term.

Revisioning Resourcing and Task Allocation in Light of COVID-19 Managing resources during a time when international travel has largely stopped has no doubt posed challenges for the implementation of development projects everywhere. Many international experts have returned home, new advisers are unable to mobilise and those who remained in-country, may not be able to return home at the end of their inputs. At Aus4Transport, we are experiencing this firsthand and it has the potential to delay the Detailed Design of the Central Highlands Connectivity Transport Project (CHCIP) and the Northern Mountains Province Transport Connectivity Project (NMPTCP) we are currently supporting the Government of Vietnam to implement. Seeing an opportunity to help our consultants address these challenges – where one team has international experts here who are nearing the end of their assignments, or are undertaking intermittent inputs due to changes to project schedules and delays in field consultations – while the other team is unable to mobilise international experts as per their schedule resulting in a different kind of delay – we introduced the two consultant teams to see if there was a way they could work together and help each other out with resourcing needs. We are also looking at innovative ways to allow international experts to work from their home location and provide support to the local field teams in different ways using video and teleconferencing, document sharing and remote workshopping. This has already resulted in one request to substitute the Social Development Specialist nominated for the NMPTP, who is unable to mobilise, with a Social Development Specialist on the CHCIP who is already based in Vietnam and working only intermittently on CHCIP. Thinking outside the square, and revisioning the allocation and use of experts, advisers and other resources is critical in a time like this and allows us to keep things moving while the world comes to a relative stand-still.

Thanks Robyn for so eloquently describing the underlying problems of our health system, which our food systems are a part. When the dust begins to settle from the COVID-19 crisis we will need strong arguments for a review of current health policies and implementing agencies. The balance between a curative medicine and preventive surveillance and response measures has never been equal, yet this crisis highlights very strongly the need for greater understanding of the emergence of pathogens from food systems, their rapid detection and proportionate management responses.

Thanks for the comment, Sarah. But can't developed countries just allow much more immigration than they currently do? Seems easier and less risky than starting from scratch (even from a political standpoint).

Thanks Dan good comment, To sum up my take after reading yours and others' comments. CDFs are almost certainly going to be part of the government's response in Solomons. (Indeed, as Casper suggests, they already are in a transport sense.) There are benefits to this: it's quick, the money actual reaches rural areas, and MPs have a political incentive for it to work, in a way. There are drawbacks too, though: CDF spending has been targeted to MPs' supporters in the past in some/most electorates; also, disbursal of CDF funds to MPs seems to sometimes be politicised (harder at times for the opposition to get). Then there's an unknown: quite a lot of CDF money seems to 'leak' on route from MP to people at the grassroots. Hopefully, this is less of an issue in a crisis. Thanks again for a great comment. Terence