Epidemics, Pandemics and Humanitarian Challenges: Lessons from a Number of Health Crises

Groupe URD has been evaluating humanitarian response and crisis management for more than 20 years and there is almost always a ‘health’ component. In all of these contexts, it has been observed how health systems react to crises and how seriously we should take such health crises due to the disastrous cross-border, or global impacts that they can have. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Groupe URD decided to bring together the lessons from work on major health crises so that they can be shared. The report reviews different research and evaluation projects including both in-depth literature reviews  and field work from Haiti, Chad and Yemen for cholera; and Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo for Ebola. During these research and evaluation projects, dozens of practitioners were interviewed in the field and at the headquarters of the agencies involved (UN agencies, NGOs, donors, and the Health ministries and institutions in the countries concerned). The content of this lesson-sharing document is largely based on these interviews.