Understanding and Addressing Systemic Risks Behind the Socio-economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Japan and India: Developing a Roadmap for a Resilient and Sustainable Future

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The COVID-19 pandemic has spread to 202 countries and territories infecting 633 million people and killing 6.6 million as on November 09, 2022. 22.7 million people were infected in Japan and 47,000 were killed. In India, 44.7 million people were infected and 531,000 were killed. COVID-19 emerged as a systemic and transboundary risk (e.g. East Asia SARS, 2003; Swine flu, 2009; and West Africa Ebola, 2014).

The economies of all countries have been affected, there are prospects for a global economic recession. COVID-19 became an added risk to the already slowing Indian economy (Subramanian and Felman, 2020). India’s growth rate has been projected as -4.5% in 2020 over 2019 (IMF, 2020). India’s GDP during the first quarter 1 was reduced by 24% (National Statistical Office, 2020). For Japan, the GDP was estimated to contract by approximately 5.0 % for FY 2020 and 3.0% for FY 2021 (Cabinet Office, 2020).

Governments are developing solutions to tackle impacts and developing green recovery plans. However, COVID-19 is unprecedented and there is a poor understanding of the drivers behind systemic risks. Without a deeper understanding of systemic risks, it will be difficult to identify effective and sustainable solutions.

Important systemic risks for which there is a lack of understanding are 1. The supply chains are scattered over different continents and countries, 2. supply chains that cannot be quickly modified to address shifts in supply and demands, 3. lack of robust understanding on how impacts on one country will affect another country, and 4. consumption-driven economies.

The massive job loss from lockdowns and restricted movement of people and goods and services lead to major compression of consumer demand. 27 million young lost their jobs in the month of April 2020 in India (CMIE, 2020). Japan’s unemployment has also been projected to rise to 3.2% in 2020 compared to 2.3% in 2019 (Cabinet Office, 2020). The combined free fall of demand and supply raises uncertainties for both the governments and constraints on traditional tools available to policymakers.

Disaster risk management (DRM) systems play a key role in safeguarding economies and social welfare, and they can mitigate systemic risks. Even though DRM systems are being improved, the COVID-19 experience showed that the current systems are not designed to address systemic and transboundary risks (Prabhakar et al., 2018). Countries are still dependent on archaic policies developed in an outdated context due to limited awareness of systemic and transboundary risks such as COVID-19.

Japan is 4th largest investor in India accounting for 7.2% of FDI inflows (GOI, 2020), and has significant exports to India (ranked 14th). In 2014, Japan’s Prime Minister pledged JPY 3.5 trillion public-private investments. Indian companies provide goods and services and are the 12th largest exporter to Japan (World Bank, 2020). Japan and India signed MOU on disaster risk reduction in 2017. COVID-19 has seriously impacted these engagements. There is a need to understand the impacts to plan for a resilient and sustainable future for these two countries. This seminar provides an opportunity for researchers on both sides to answer important questions raised by COVID-19.

Considering the above background, the objectives of the seminar are:

1. To discuss systemic risks behind the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 in Japan and India,

2. To identify the transboundary impacts of COVID-19 on Japan and India,

3. To develop a roadmap for a resilient and sustainable future for Japan and India, the region, and

4. To foster strong research collaboration on COVID-19 between relevant researchers in Japan and India