In contrast, in many parts of East Africa, rural populations including displaced people have tended to fear foreigners including aid workers and people in capital cities including politicians as carriers of COVID-19.47 With these individuals coming from elite classes and even positions of authority in COVID-19 responses, they are less vulnerable to discrimination and social exclusion. Rather, fear of people perceived to carry disease in this context is more likely to take the form of resistance to public health measures and political messages, building on long-standing centre-periphery grievances, wealth inequalities and lack of engagement in national processes. Such resistance, however, also puts displaced people at further risk of enforcementrelated violence. Particularly in conflict-affected places, therefore, discussions about lack of trust in political and healthcare systems and community engagement initiatives should be carefully considered in light of countries’ histories of using the public health system to exercise power, including through quarantine practices and lockdowns.48 LIVELIHOODS AND ACCESS TO AID UNDER LOCKDOWN What is sometimes referred to as ‘resilience’ in the development and humanitarian sectors encompasses a wide range of strategies developed over time to build and rebuild one’s life in adverse situations. To cope with the economic insecurity of war and forced displacement, people tend to create livelihood ‘systems’49 exploiting a diverse repertoire of coping strategies and transnational income streams accessed through social networks including savings and capital, mutual assistance, aid, education and work opportunities. The multiple avenues used by migrants to cope with displacement means that they cannot be considered as exclusively ‘aid-dependent’ or ‘self-reliant’. While no single strategy or income stream may be robust in times of crisis, a diversified approach is potentially more resilient and reflective of the realities of a globalised economy.50 Quarantines and travel lockdowns are negatively impacting nearly all livelihood strategies, immobilizing the structures that displaced people use to cope with crisis and compounding vulnerabilities associated with displacement. Restrictions on people's ability to secure income from informal employment and lack of access to ‘safety nets’ in host countries could put more pressure on humanitarian aid and remittances, which are also threatened by the financial implications of the pandemic. Moreover, disruptions to education due to schools and university closure under lockdown have both immediate consequences on well-being (such as lack of access to services provided through schools) and longer-term implications amplifying inequalities in peoples’ abilities to build careers. Jobs: IDPs and refugees are more often dependent on insecure and informal employment than non-displaced people,22 depending on daily wages for subsistence, so have fewer savings, employment benefits and support from workers’ unions to sustain these financial shocks.51 COVID-19 lockdowns have worsened restrictions on displaced peoples’ movements to pursue work outside of camps in Kenya, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinians Territories. Monitoring from UNHCR has reported that amongst IDPs surveyed in Iraq, 89% reported loss of employment since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and in Lebanon, the share of KEY CONSIDERATIONS: COVID-19 AND FORCED DISPLACEMENT IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND EAST AFRICA Contact: a.wilkinson@ids.ac.uk 10