Odi Live Events Podcast

As governments wrestle with the trade-offs between continuing their lockdowns in support of public health during the Covid-19 crisis and easing restrictions to boost ailing economies, everyday life is changing. While it is hoped that some aspects of life before Covid-19 will resume, a new ‘normal’ will also likely emerge. And this is also the case with research and data collection. As this webinar reveals, the pandemic has brought new and existing challenges to the fore, not least in relation to doing research and data collection to inform programming and policy. Drawn from first-hand practical experience of research in Nigeria, Gaza, Tanzania and Bangladesh, this live interactive event co-hosted with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine explores adaptations and solutions to the challenges of doing research during Covid-19 including the role of digital technology; how researchers are keeping safe and how ethical issues are being addressed; and the need to reconsider potentially extractive prac

We discuss the recent announcement by the UK government to merge the Department for International Development with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with perspectives from the Commonwealth, Development Assistance Committee countries and the aid sector.

In these unprecedented times, millions of refugees face lockdown in environments where social distancing or access to essential financial or medical support are limited or non-existent. As families and communities struggle to access resources, schools or opportunities, child-marriage and unsafe underage labour are beginning to take priority over education, and concerns are mounting that adolescent refugees will be left behind during the pandemic response. Based on real-time virtual interviews with adolescents within refugee contexts, we examine age- and gender- specific vulnerabilities of adolescent refugees. We spotlight adolescent refugee voices from the Palestinian, Rohingya and Syrian refugee crises and identify key priorities for policy and programming, as well as putting forward recommendations to address critical education and protection gaps for adolescents during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is posing unprecedented challenges across the world, putting considerable strains on leadership, the health sector and our way of living. Insurgent groups from the Taliban to Al Shabab, have provided health advice and produced propaganda highlighting their action against Covid-19. Gangs in Rio have sought to enforce pandemic restrictions and notorious cartel leader El Chapo has produced health kits emblazoned with his likeness, unmasking in some cases state fragility and institutional weaknesses. While some armed groups have used the pandemic as another means of waging their propaganda, armed groups in Mali, Central African Republic and elsewhere, have heeded the UN Secretary General’s call to halt the violence in aid of efforts to combat Covid-19. As we launch the ODI Centre for the Study of Armed Groups, we discuss how armed groups across the world’s conflict zones have reacted to the pandemic, and the implications this will have for humanitarian responses, peacebuilding e

'What if some African governments are doing a better job than our own of managing the coronavirus?' (New Yorker, May 2020) Covid-19 has gripped the world, shaken the multilateral system and caused widespread uncertainty. One thing remains clear, there is no going back and adaptations will need to be made to shift towards a new normal. The key to this will be developing new forms of cooperation between countries and communities around the globe. Early signs from Africa are that in many countries the response to Covid-19 has been effective – perhaps because they were able learn from how the pandemic unfolded across the world from China to Italy and through Europe. But contrary to commonplace narratives about aiding Africa, recent events highlight opportunities for Europe and elsewhere to learn from Africa. Beyond the immediate response to the pandemic, countries across Africa will face considerable challenges in the recovery, with an urgent need to finance weakened economies and to adapt existing approaches

The spread of the Covid-19 virus is testing the health and economic systems of individual countries and the world as a whole. The standard response ‘toolkit’ initially focussed primarily on containing the spread of the virus, with some adjustment of economic and social policies required to address the needs of people in or near poverty. Across countries there are growing concerns about the impact that the pandemic and the policy responses will have on the lives of the poorest and most marginalised who may be least able to withstand Covid-19 on top of their existing vulnerabilities and crises. While the impact of the pandemic is still in its initial stages across many low and lower middle-income countries, its peak is expected during the next few months. This webinar brings together researchers, practitioners and policy makers to discuss the impacts of the virus and short-term policy responses on the world’s poorest, and the adjustments to immediate policy responses needed to prevent impoverishment, hunger a

The effects of the Covid-19 crisis in sub-Saharan Africa through trade, commodity prices, remittances, tourism and global value chains are likely to be devastating. The World Bank is forecasting a decline in growth in the region from 2.4% in 2019 to between -2.1 and -5.1% this year, estimating African economies could lose between $37 billion and $79 billion in output losses. This will have huge financial impact. On one level, economies will struggle to achieve financial stability and recover as concerns mount on issues around debt sustainability. On another level, the crisis will impact African countries financial sector development (FSD), which may also have implications for how policies and regulations are formulated and implemented in a post-Covid world. This webinar convenes finance experts and sector stakeholders to discuss the post-Covid trade-offs between financial stability and economic renewal for African countries and what specific FSD policies, and regulation are important to address the fall

Decades-long commitments to supporting more ‘local’ responses to crises have not resulted in significant shifts in the traditional humanitarian system. Funding, decision-making and capacity continue to be concentrated in large international aid actors. Experts are now highlighting the critical role that local responders will play in relation to Covid-19 given their ability to act fast, engage communities and maintain delivery in the context of national and international travel restrictions. Will this lead to a reset of the humanitarian system? Or, beyond the rhetoric, will it be business as usual? This event launches the Humanitarian Policy Group's (HPG) new report, From the ground up: it's about time for local humanitarian action, which brings together two years of research on examining humanitarian action, power imbalances and local capacity. Using report recommendations, we discuss whether Covid-19 is unlocking some of the barriers to more locally-led humanitarian responses in practice. This event is pa

India’s federal government has taken a cautious approach in response to the social and economic impacts of the coronavirus crisis. The initial fiscal support provided was equivalent to just 0.8% of GDP – despite millions of workers losing their jobs since the lockdown has been put in place. More recently, Prime Minister Modi has promised a much larger economic stimulus package, although there seems to be limited direct grants or subsidies available. This stands in contrast to the much larger fiscal support packages being put in place by governments around the world. Yet is ‘doing whatever it takes’ a realistic option in India? The crisis comes at a time when the economy was already weakening, and the government is unable to rely upon the central banks to refinance debts denominated in foreign currency. How then should the government steer a course between providing relief from the crisis and concerns for the stability of the macroeconomy? This is a joint event co-hosted by ODI, the National Institute for

The ongoing coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is posing unprecedented challenges to leadership across the world. The pace at which policymakers, practitioners and researchers react to this emerging and complex crisis will make a profound difference to people’s lives and livelihoods. But how can we ensure effective, collective decision-making based on emerging evidence, changing trends and shifting scientific understanding, all in the face of considerable uncertainty? Recent experience highlights the need for adaptive leadership in national and global responses to the outbreak. This requires adaptive leadership capacities like being open and transparent about learning, using collective decision-making processes and building trust with communities and individuals. Using ODI’s research on adaptive leadership during the coronavirus response, we discuss practical applications of adaptive responses during the Covid-19 outbreak, bridging science, policy and practice.

Twenty-five years after the world's leaders committed to transforming women's rights in the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), girls still remain a missing piece of the roadmap towards gender equality. While tremendous progress has been made, there is still a long way to go and it is more important than ever to make sure girls are not left behind.  We know that during a girl’s lifecycle the years between ages 10 and 19 are increasingly recognised as the critical time to protect and promote their rights. In order to prevent girls from the double burden society places on them for being young and female, their contexts and contributions must be counted. Successful social and political transformation requires better data on girls' experiences, adequate planning, multi-stakeholder engagement and funding to drive norm change and build a world that girls deserve.  This event brings together leading voices in shaping the global political agenda for girls’ rights and shares innovations and initiatives that put them

The urgency of the Covid-19 threat is increasing the demand for governments to use existing technologies in new ways and to use untested new technologies on urgent problems. The use of these technologies are part of a rapidly deployed ‘digital safety net’ aimed at saving lives and protecting citizens. Without the usual time available to test new ideas it is more important than ever that best practice is identified and shared. This event contributes to further thinking about the role of digital technology in providing a safety net in times of crisis, the essential components of the safety net and newly designed technology being used to respond to the Covid-19 crisis. We bring perspectives from different geographies and address critical lessons covering three aspects of the crisis response: tackling the virus, social protection and public information.

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. As the Covid-19 crisis illustrates all too vividly, not only is health important in itself, but healthy people are better able to learn, be productive and contribute to their communities. Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) is critical to this and essential to ensuring that no one is ‘left behind’ in accessing quality health services because of who they are, where they live or their socio-economic situation. Using ODI research on access to health for left-behind groups and contemporary case studies on moves towards UHC in low- and middle-income countries, we discuss the constraints, enabling factors and strategies used in the roll-out of UHC, as well innovative approaches and interventions to reach left-behind groups and achieve UHC in a progressively universal manner. We will also incorporate reflections on how the current Covid-19 outbreak is highlighting the need for universality, and how it might

Stories of irrelevant aid regularly arise in humanitarian assistance. People affected by disasters or crises receive food they cannot eat, services they do not want or technologies they cannot use. If they are not getting what they really need, something is going wrong. Relevance is central to humanitarian principles and standards, however putting it into practice is profoundly difficult and potentially disruptive. Realigning the humanitarian offer with the priorities of affected people opens unique opportunities in identifying dynamic needs, being culturally and contextually relevant and delivering on time and at scale. On the back of ALNAP’s 32nd Annual Meeting, we explore how those working in humanitarian policy and implementation are tackling these themes and the challenges faced in doing so.

The world’s second largest outbreak of Ebola was declared on 1 August 2018 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More than 2,200 people have died and over 3,300 have been infected. The response to Ebola has been complicated by conflict between central government, local political actors and armed groups in the affected areas. Rumours about the virus and the response have also been spread and shaped by that conflict. Attempts have been made to apply key lessons from the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, such as the need for strong surveillance and outbreak control strategies and the importance of understanding the behaviours, practices and perceptions of communities and of engaging them actively in the response. The identification and trial use of effective vaccines during the outbreak has been an important and promising development. Yet, despite these efforts, cases of Ebola continue to be reported. Drawing on articles from the Humanitarian Exchange, this webinar will discuss to what degree the lessons

PFI conference 2020: closing panel by Overseas Development Institute

Chair: Cathal Long, Research Fellow ODI • Binta Zahra Diop, PhD. Candidate, University of Oxford • Khuram Farooq, Chair of IFMIS Community of Practice, World Bank • Jess Gartner, CEO & Founder at Allovue • Jacqueline Musabende, Assistant Professor, Mount Royal University

Chair: Alina Rocha Menocal, Senior Research Fellow ODI • Joe Abah, Country Director DAI, Nigeria and formerly head of public sector reform, Government of Nigeria • Kalipso Chalkidou, Director of Global Health Policy, Centre for Global Development • Adnan Khan, Professor of Practice, London School of Economics • Jodi Wishnia, University of Witswaterand and Public Health Consultant

Session 4: Promoting accountability for results Chair: Tom Hart, Research Fellow, ODI • Seye Abimbola, Lecturer, Public Health, University of Sydney • Ivor Beazley, Senior Public Sector Specialist, World Bank • Loraine Hawkins, Governor, The Health Foundation • Dan Honig, Assistant Professor of International Development, John Hopkins University

Chair : Catherine Dom, Principal Consultant Mokoro • Bernard Gauthier, Professor, Department of Applied Economics, HEC Montreal • Dorcus Kiwanuka Henriksson, Karolinska Institutet • Marcel Mukeshimana, Accountant General, Government of Rwanda • Benjamin Tsofa, Deputy Director, Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)