THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: HOW ARE HUMANITARIAN AND DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION ACTORS DOING SO FAR? HOW COULD WE DO BETTER?

The COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition has conducted an early evidence synthesis of initial lessons from bilateral and multilateral COVID-19 response and recovery efforts. The synthesis can support actors involved to learn and take actions to improve the ongoing effort, and future crisis responses. The intended audience is policy and decision makers in humanitarian and development organisations/Ministries, and partner countries, particularly COVID-19 task forces and co-ordinating bodies. The lessons focus on success factors and challenges related to organisational arrangements and procedures followed in response to the pandemic, including crisis management and reprogramming strategies, communication methods (internal and external), human resources, mainstreaming of gender equality and women’s empowerment, and innovation and risk management practices.  This review highlights some areas where the international community can be proud, including taking quick action to adjust or re-focus support and providing additional funding to respond to this unprecedented crisis. Several concerns also emerge, including unsustainable pressures on staff, limited attention to systems strengthening and insufficient reactivity to update approaches as new information became available The report draws on evidence available from the first year of the pandemic March 2020 - February 2021 and includes some 200 evaluations, as well as other lesson-learning exercises such as results monitoring, action reviews, and internal reflection exercises deemed by the partner to be credible and relevant. Future syntheses will look at results and effectiveness, as more evidence becomes available.