Webinar: Humanitarian lessons from the past and the covid 19 response

Humanitarian lessons from the past and the covid 19 response

The Covid-19 pandemic in poor countries with weak public health systems and fragile economic structures can cause lasting humanitarian and economic crisis. Development assistance may reduce some of the negative effects, provided it is well targeted to the specific context and builds on lessons from past crisis interventions.

The evaluation webinar will highlight and invite discussion of the opportunities and challenges development assistance is facing in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.

How is the corona pandemic seen from an African country perspective? Is the aid response primarily based on western self-interests? How can lessons from past crisis inform the aid response?

Watch the webinar on YouTube.

Munzoul Assal
is Professor of Social Anthropology at Khartoum University in Sudan. He has closely followed the developments in Sudan after the fall of Bashir, and looks at how this transition may have consequences for the prospects of peace in South Sudan.

Dr. Julia Betts
is an independent humanitarian evaluation consultant specialising in humanitarian and complex governance environments. She designs and lead humanitarian and development evaluations for UN/bilateral agencies and development banks.

Ottar Mæstad
is Director of Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI). He is an Economist with a research background both in global health and in areas such as environment and energy, climate policy and international trade. Mæstad has wide experience from research, research management, and policy analysis. He has led a number of research projects for clients such as the Research Council of Norway, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norad, the World Bank, and others.

Per Øyvind Bastøe
is Evaluation Director of Norad and Chair of OECD-DAC EvalNet. Bastøe has a broad experience from international development, evaluation, results management and organisational change from the Norwegian government administration, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. His most recent book “New Challenges and New Roles – Development Financing in the 21st Century” discusses the rapidly changing landscape of development financing and the possibilities and limitations for the Nordic countries.

Photo credit: GovernmentZA, flickr