Strategic Joint Evaluation of the Collective International Development and Humanitarian Assistance Response to the COVID‑19 Pandemic

7. Learning from the COVID-19 crisis: Eight key lessons for international co-operation

Abstract

This chapter identifies and consolidates lessons drawn from the analysis of the overall relevance, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of international development and humanitarian response to the COVID-19 crisis from 2020-2022. These eight overarching lessons are aimed at ministries and development and humanitarian agencies – and other parts of national and local governments involved in international co-operation – as well as non-governmental organisations, UN organisations and international development banks, with the goal of increasing preparedness and strengthening effectiveness and efficiency in future crisis response efforts. The lessons cover ways of establishing partnerships and working – both before and during a crisis – to respond to emerging needs and ensure long-term resilience. Each general lesson includes a description of the issue and specific suggestions based on the analysis of the practices, policies and behaviours that contributed to more effective crisis responses. It ends with lessons on learning and evaluation.

The COVID-19 crisis triggered an unprecedented global response, bringing together communities, governments, international organisations and development agencies to mobilise, co‑ordinate and deploy resources. In many ways, the crisis showed the potential of international co‑operation and assistance to combine political decisiveness and technical know-how to respond at speed and scale to reduce human suffering. The analysis presented here also shows that co-operation too often falls short of this promise, and cannot, on its own, compensate for broader failings in international crisis management. There is an urgent need to learn from past failings and scale up best practices.

This chapter outlines eight lessons for development co-operation partners, including providers, implementers, technical partners, governments and communities operating in future crises, as well as improving the efficiency and impact of development co-operation generally. The lessons can be relevant for various international public actions, including advocacy and technical co‑operation, as well as work with the private sector. Reflections from partners involved in this exercise have highlighted how these findings may resonate with efforts to improve international co-operation in other areas, including work to combat the climate crisis, which also requires fast and ambitious action at scale.

Lessons were identified through country visits, interviews, document review and an evaluation synthesis, and case studies. Where these lessons were common across multiple sources, a key lesson was developed and refined during learning events in 2025. The lessons focus on generally applicable insights and should be read in tandem with more specific lessons from other evaluations. By understanding and integrating these lessons, the international development community can better prepare for future challenges and strengthen capacities to support the most vulnerable populations worldwide.

Key lessons include the importance of incentivising early action, managing uncertainty, and forming effective partnerships. These lessons highlight how to ensure limited resources are put to best use and underscore the need for international co‑operation to work hand in glove with effective country systems (national and local). A successful emergency response – globally and nationally – requires leadership and effective communication across all partners. Future responses must consider the COVID-19 lesson that reacting quickly and flexibly is no substitute for being well prepared with established co-ordination mechanisms and basic planning elements such as capacity assessments in health systems.

7.1. Overall reflections on responding effectively to a global crisis

In 2020, development and humanitarian actors – and the governments and communities they aim to support – were faced with an unprecedented crisis that affected every country and served as a reminder of the interconnectedness between communities and across policy areas. In addition to intensive work to keep existing programmes and projects running – and adjust them to the rapidly changing crisis – the COVID-19 crisis response involved targeted co-operation around preventing infection, disease and death; addressing the economic and social implications of the pandemic and related containment policies; and supporting long-term needs, including strengthening health systems.

The urgency created by the crisis appears to have been a catalyst, enabling flexibility and a “get it done” attitude that drove speed, streamlined certain bureaucratic processes and sharpened focus on what really matters. Development and humanitarian institutions had to balance the requirement to respond swiftly amid high uncertainty, while considering the different mandates, capacities and accountabilities of various stakeholders within the international community. There was a need to balance the ease of working through established partnerships and existing systems and mechanisms with responding to new needs – a balance which many struggled to find.

The evaluation found that many development actors made mistakes that could have been avoided and quickly reverted to old ways, missing the opportunity to transform some of the effective temporary measures into permanent arrangements. Despite many successful individual and joint efforts, geo-political considerations often outweighed evidence on needs and potential impact, undermining relevance, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency. Incoherence across policy instruments and the lack of robust co‑ordination mechanisms to drive resource allocations – including vaccines – was inefficient. Preparedness, including investment in prevention and sound public health systems, was insufficient, undermining the potential for effective action once the crisis broke out.

7.2. Eight lessons from the pandemic response

This section summarises the key lessons for development and humanitarian assistance drawn from the evaluation. Each lesson (summarised in Box ‎7.1) is accompanied by a brief descriptive paragraph and supportive evidence to help operationalise the lesson.

Box ‎7.1. Eight lessons for international development co‑operation and humanitarian assistance

1. Within development agencies, develop crisis response plans and strategies that support rapid decision making and co-ordination across all parts of government – and with partners.

2. Fund quickly in line with known best practices, while using available evidence to identify emerging needs (including of vulnerable populations) and building learning into the crisis response to manage changing priorities and adjust strategies as needed.

3. Build on established partnerships with governments and multilateral institutions to enable rapid deployment of large-scale financial resources, enhancing timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness.

4. Ensure co-ordination mechanisms and agreements between funding, implementing and national partners are in place in advance of a crisis. Such agreements should enable rapid adjustment of existing programmes, support joint analyses, and facilitate the deployment of funding quickly for the most likely needs and priorities.

5. Align the appropriate financial instruments for crisis response to country-specific needs and contexts and prioritise the use of cost-effective tools such as cash transfers and budget support to scale up relevant support to meet these needs.

6. Systematically invest in and integrate social support systems into national crisis response plans. At country-level, avoid creating parallel or one-off systems (including oversight mechanisms) and instead fund with the longer term in mind, using the crisis context to strengthen and scale up national health and social protection systems, and increase reach.

7. Strengthen in advance and prioritise funding through the multilateral system – while avoiding duplicative bilateral actions – for a co‑ordinated, flexible response. Leverage benefits of unearmarked and pooled funding.

8. Work across government to address incoherent policy actions that undermine development and humanitarian goals. Reconsider how national interest is framed and implemented to ensure that perceived protection of national interest in the short term does not ultimately undermine outcomes for all.

Lesson 1. Managing internal co-ordination and preparedness

Being better prepared for the next global pandemic is essential. Development agencies and ministries need crisis response plans and strategies that support rapid decision making and co-ordination across all parts of government – and with partners. Internal co-ordination mechanisms, including established or new crisis response units with transversal mandates, were crucial for effective communication and implementing a coherent and quick crisis response. Planning needs to be both adequate and targeted (preparing for realistic threats). Intergovernmental mechanisms – with sufficient clout and clearly defined roles – can play a critical convening role across government. Another key factor was having sufficient political-level support, for example being led by the Prime Minister’s Office or mandated by Cabinet. Crisis mechanisms need to support flexibility and investment in ongoing learning and feedback loops.

In contrast, several providers found that different collaborating ministries were guided by different priorities. Combined with occasional ad hoc political decision making, this resulted in strategic uncertainty and incoherence. The internal mechanisms put in place to co-ordinate the response to COVID-19 demonstrated that with strong political commitment, multisectoral responses can be effective, though it is not clear if such approach can be sustained to address more long-term challenges such as poverty.

To ensure better crisis response in the future, it is essential to:

• Establish a specific office or team responsible for institutionally anchoring crisis response programmes and co-ordinating across government, including making decisions, deploying resources, and incorporating and disseminating insights gained from internal and external learning.

• Work across government to act as one in international fora, regional bodies and bilateral relationships.

• Ensure crisis plans give clear guidance on roles, partnerships, channels and co‑ordination mechanisms.

• Establish context appropriate staffing models that prioritise local knowledge and know-how and create capacity for continuity and relationships.

• Prepare and plan for managing human resources to enable programme continuity.

• Communicate with and support staff, partners and contractors and address any direct impacts of the crisis on their well-being effectively and thoughtfully, adapting to individual needs and local conditions as they change over time.

Lesson 2. Using evidence and strengthening learning

In the early days of the crisis, there was a clear need to act quickly while ensuring sufficient flexibility to adjust responses as more information becomes available and priorities change. This involved funding quickly in line with known best practices. It also required using available evidence to identify emerging needs, including of vulnerable populations and those particularly at risk in a particular crisis context (such as elderly and immunocompromised people during the COVID-19 pandemic).

Overall, the collective effort showed the need to improve allocation decisions, to provide funding where it is both needed and can make a difference, not just where it is politically expedient. This involves prioritising speed with a “no regrets” funding approach, based on available information (including using evidence from previous experiences and imperfect emerging evidence), combined with proactive learning to adjust as new information arrives. Finding the right balance between strategic planning, timely action and robust monitoring can lead to more relevant, accountable, efficient and impactful responses in future crises.

The pandemic provided useful lessons on the value of carrying out needs assessments using a common framework and involving all relevant partners. These needs assessments and related country planning mechanisms provided useful as ways of focusing and prioritising as well as aligning co-ordinated efforts. UN partners, civil society groups, and national stakeholders also used them effectively to raise attention to and advocate for the needs of vulnerable groups.

Capacities to respond effectively to health emergencies and other crises are not only a question of funding but also require more effective exchange of evidence and learning across countries of all income groups. The risks of knowledge loss following a crisis is high. More systematic approaches to documenting and compiling lessons as a crisis unfolds could enable more effective and efficient support. While many actors invested in learning and evaluation – including by supporting the COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition – there were missed opportunities to draw on lessons from past crises and to capture lessons as they were learned.

To better target international assistance and ensure more effective support:

• Be both adaptable and flexible and build learning into the crisis response to manage changing priorities and adjust strategies as needed. Invest in ongoing learning and course correction to match the right type of support to each context, including managing trade-offs between competing priorities.

• Use multi-phase country-level response plans that both immediate crisis-related needs while maintaining a long-term view and allowing for flexibility as more information becomes available.

• Co-ordinate investment in needs assessments and scenario planning to guide action. Avoid duplicative efforts and support co‑ordination, by borrowing or building on other needs assessments (or agreeing to a single crisis assessment that can be used by all partners).

• Set out feasible approaches to monitoring and reporting in crisis response plans. Clearly define responsibilities for planning, management, and evaluation, including integrating monitoring and evaluation approaches and joint scenario analysis from the onset, ensuring they are easy for partners to implement.

• Work to break down silos to capture and share regionally and globally to inform overall crisis-response, as was done with some of the medical elements of the pandemic response.

• Improve the quality and availability of data, particularly results data, which remains limited, and address gaps in data collection on vulnerable groups to enhance the assessment of response effectiveness.

Lesson 3. Working through existing partners and meeting emerging needs

Particularly in the initial phase, a barrier to acting quickly was the time taken to put in place measures or facilities to respond to the pandemic. What worked better was using already established mechanisms – such as emergency funds and co-operation platforms to allow crisis responses to be “slotted in” to existing arrangements.

Building on established partnerships with governments and multilateral institutions were critical to enable rapid deployment of large-scale financial resources, enhancing timeliness, efficiency and effectiveness. Relationships established over years or even decades build confidence between partners. These can be drawn upon during a crisis to overcome barriers and move resources quickly. Making new funding available to existing partners and allowing no-cost extensions or other emergency programme adjustments, provides much needed flexibility to adjust to changes in local conditions (including containment measures).

Emergency declarations related to the pandemic allowed for pragmatic actions, and working around barriers by, for example, streamlining approvals and reducing reporting requirements – both for existing partners and to allow new partners to receive support. In most cases, it was most effective for providers to maintain attention on their existing strategic development co-operation priorities (sectors, policy areas, geographies and target populations), and focus on adjusting ongoing programmes to the crisis, rather than trying to move into new thematic areas or geographies during the crisis. This can involve drawing on established networks and knowledge of local contexts to determine what adjustments in current programming could be made in the immediate term and working with other providers and partners to identify gaps or new needs that are not met through current partnerships.

However, the benefits of staying the course with existing partners must be weighed against addressing crisis-specific needs in different contexts. The approach to funding decisions varied widely, but in many cases was largely driven by geopolitical considerations or historical partnerships and insufficiently informed by evidence on vulnerability and potential impact. More work is needed to look at the articulation between humanitarian and development streams, which are often operate through distinct channels and institutions, limited the opportunities for flexibility between them.

The evaluation found that capacity was limited to respond to the needs of people who were more vulnerable to the virus itself (the elderly and immunocompromised), and those who were not already targeted in development projects. Future crisis response can work to identify ways to add additional target groups or and adjust existing mechanisms for reaching vulnerable groups to be expanded if needed as new vulnerabilities emerge in a specific context.

Effective partnering for crisis response includes the need to:

• Embed crisis response measures in existing projects and partnerships to enable an efficient crisis response, particularly when looking to deploy large scale funding quickly. This could include contingency lines or emergency funds in budgets, or an option for allowing shifting funding and activities between programme objectives if required.

• Find ways to target those most in need by balancing pre-existing relationships between donors and recipients with evidence-informed and needs-based considerations, as well as options to extend or expand rapid or emergency-response programming as needs change. While relying on existing partners, be careful not to overlook needs and equity implications – and find other ways (including multilateral channels and co‑ordination with other providers) to ensure application of the "leaving no one behind" principle.

• Identify newly vulnerable populations and emerging needs which may be less readily identified and harder to meet through existing (or adjusted) programmes.

• Support government efforts – including through technical assistance and knowledge exchange – to establish effective social protection systems that take vulnerabilities into account.

• Explore mechanisms to co‑ordinate funding allocations globally (across providers and between countries) to drive greater fairness. The experience with COVAX shows that such mechanisms can work, provided they are sufficiently funded, and bilateral actions align with the joined-up approach.

Lesson 4. Preparing for a co-ordinated, rapid crisis response

Fragmentation and lack of co‑ordination have long been flagged as weaknesses in international assistance and a consistent challenge within the global health landscape. Thus, many development actors recognised early in the pandemic that the scale of the crisis would require concerted and improved co‑ordination.

Country ownership remains a core tenet of effective development co‑operation – a principle that the COVID-19 experience reinforced. Experiences from many countries showed the value of a strong government-led co‑ordinating body that both steers the national response and provides a mechanism for co‑ordination of international partners. Local actors also play critical roles in delivery and responsiveness. Established or new internal co-ordination mechanisms and crisis response units with transversal mandates helped drive effective communication and rapid decision making. Such entities play a key role for a coherent and quick crisis response while ensuring some level of continuity in core government and health services.

The evaluation shows that the response was more coherent when systems, mechanisms and plans were already in place before the crisis. Co‑ordination was most effective in contexts where development and humanitarian actors were already working together with the national government. Where frameworks from past crises, such as in Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Lebanon and Nicaragua, were applied, the effectiveness of the response improved.

Local CSOs, despite playing a crucial role in the response, were often excluded from decision making and co‑ordination processes and at times underutilised for reaching impacted populations. Those development partners that already relied on local and international CSOs were able to use them in the COVID crisis to understand the local impacts of the pandemic and quickly adapt to emerging needs.

The COVID experience also showed that in cases where a government is unwilling or unable to mount an effective response, or is taking measures with which external partners disagree, there is still a role for development partners as trusted advisors, advocates, supporters of civil society and as funders for other institutions – including UN agencies – that may be able to work around and through political barriers to deliver humanitarian and other types of support.

To position themselves to co-ordinate and act quickly:

• Quickly identify suitable existing co‑ordination mechanisms – or establish a fit-for-purpose mechanism – with government, UN country teams (UNCTs), funders, technical experts and other stakeholders, and position the national government to steer and provide strong political leadership.

• Involve affected people (if not in the mechanism itself than through representative entities).

• Commit to using co-ordination mechanisms and work together around shared goals and plans, avoiding as much as possible the creation of parallel systems and structures.

• Map possibilities for rapid funding of CSOs, especially local organisations, and identify in advance the funding channels through which these organisations can be reached.

• Find ways to offer guidance and technical suggestions without overstepping local and national authorities' decision making. Make sure that these are resilient to function without the presence of expatriate staff from international partners.

Lesson 5. Aligning funding types with country contexts

The COVID crisis response shows the importance of international development finance using the appropriate financial instruments for country-specific needs and contexts. The use of cost-effective tools including cash transfers and budget support was effective to scale up relevant support to meet these needs. Evidence highlights the importance of having a flexible toolkit of response mechanisms that can be deployed relatively quickly. Greater delegated financial authority in partner countries was useful in this regard.

Knowing which financial instruments and forms of assistance to use in a given context – and understanding the trade-offs involved – is key to an effective and sustainable response. There is no one type of funding that is inherently “good” or “bad” – the role of public sector finance, private sector mobilisation, in-kind aid and other instruments depends on the purpose, timing and funded entities involved. Responses must be tailored to each socioeconomic context.

Cash transfers can also be an effective modality of support in both humanitarian and development settings and were widely used during the pandemic to respond to a range of needs.

Budget support increased markedly during the pandemic and demonstrated value as an effective tool for quickly deploying relevant support to countries, offering flexible funding that empowered recipient governments to determine their own priorities based on needs. This worked effectively when it topped-up existing budget support mechanisms. In the right setting, using budget support is efficient and effective, and can allow the scaling up of social protection or conditional cash transfer mechanisms, a speedy way of getting assistance to those who need it. Budget support had important secondary effects as well, including reinforcing more equitable partnerships and strengthened national systems, which are critical to long term development. Using such modalities ensured more relevant responses as they allowed for some degree of flexibility to changing needs, particularly in a context of high uncertainty. The use of budget support and similar funding mechanisms have decreased since the end of the pandemic.

In-kind support also played a role in the COVID response efforts. The global shortages of health equipment also underscored the importance of investing in preparedness and pre-positioning essential supplies for a more timely and cost-effective response. While nearly every provider studied provided in-kind donations of masks, gloves, testing kits and other supplies, there seems to have been very little co-ordination of these efforts and an over-emphasis on high-visibility bilateral support. This resulted in unnecessary waste and inefficiency. Several countries reported a skewing or redirecting of funding to high-visibility supplies. Furthermore, in adjusting to local contexts, there was a challenge in balancing immediate pandemic needs with longer term priorities, including climate resilience and governance reform efforts, which were put on hold in many countries.

To maximise the positive impacts of funding in different country contexts:

• Improve resilience to future crises by removing barriers to providing unearmarked funds and create smooth pathways for budget support during crises.

• Match finance modalities to contextual factors including a country's debt burden and capacity to absorb financial support, fragility and conflict, and the political environment.

• In countries with strong public financial management, use budget support to get funding to those in need quickly and sustainably.

• Prioritise cash-based assistance over in-kind assistance, and when providing in-kind support look for ways to ensure efficiency and sustainability.

• Use civil society organisations (CSOs) and local non-profit groups to provide context-responsive support to impacted communities, including with a focus on reaching marginalised people.

• Work together to communicate openly and consistently with impacted communities about the crisis and response measures. Ensure clear messaging is delivered via trusted actors, and be sensitive to broader inequalities and power dynamics, which can influence access to information.

Lesson 6. Investing in and using national systems

Across the board, the crisis shone a spotlight on the need to systematically invest in and integrate health and social support systems into national crisis response plans. There were many examples of countries using the crisis context to strengthen, add on to or scale up national health and social protection systems and increase reach. Unfortunately, there were also plenty of cases where international funders created parallel or one-off systems (including oversight mechanisms), which may reduce short-term corruption risks but ultimately weakens national capacities and risks undermining public trust.

Reducing inequalities in health, economic and social contexts, while addressing vulnerability, is not only desirable, but crucial to lessening the impact of a future pandemic for all. Despite challenges in managing competing priorities, governments and development partners were largely successful in adjusting the implementation of programmes and meeting the changing needs of target groups with whom they were already working (e.g. women and girls).

Funding for the health sector – and other social sectors, including education – remains inadequate and under-prioritised, despite the clear evidence even before the COVID pandemic that investment in health was needed to build resilience and preparedness for future pandemics, and that many of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) targets linked to health will not be attained. During the crisis, health funding commitments increased by 73% from 2019 to 2020 (USD 49 billion), reaching a record high in 2022 of USD 59 billion (OECD). By 2022, however, funding to health and social sector spending began to decline.

There were some positive examples of capacity building and workforce development, with international assistance being used for both the recruiting and training of healthcare workers in infection prevention control, diagnostics and case management. The strengthening of health information systems through, for example, the digitalisation and standardisation of health-related data collection and analysis comprised another part of development co-operation support for health systems that goes beyond the initial response.

The pandemic exposed significant gaps in social protection systems, particularly for those operating outside formal employment structures but also resulted in scaling up and expanding social protection in many contexts. Traditional vulnerability assessments and targeting mechanisms proved inadequate for capturing these emerging vulnerabilities, resulting in delayed and insufficient responses that exacerbated economic insecurity and deepened inequality across affected communities.

Provision of supplies and investments in diagnostic, testing or treatment infrastructure that could be sustained and contribute to the longer-term strengthening of the health systems proved particularly useful and cost-effective. External support for digitalisation processes, including for service delivery mechanisms, social protection, child welfare and critical health services were also successful. Embedding inclusivity into preparedness and response systems was also important for enabling more effective and coherent action. These must be backed up by structures and capacities and mandates to ensure operationalisation.

To prepare for and respond better to future crises:

• Embed crisis response mechanisms into long-term systems to ensure that the response supports – rather than undermines - structural reform.

• International partners should avoid setting up parallel or one-off systems (including oversight mechanisms) to manage programmes that they fund – such as social protection and health system capacity building projects.

• Fund with the longer term in mind, using the crisis context to strengthen and scale up national health and social protection systems, and increase reach.

• In advance of crisis, implement systems for innovation, in particular for digitalisation, which can drive a successful response. During a crisis, work to systematically identify and share promising innovations.

• Use cash transfers and provision of public services for free or at reduced rates to provide blanket support when large parts of the population are in-need during a crisis.

• Preposition medical and humanitarian supplies and cultivate local production sources where appropriate to support quick action to reach households when supply chains are disrupted.

• Invest in improving health systems over time and in ways that support global pandemic preparedness and response goals, as well as national priorities.

• Systematically embed inclusivity, gender equality, human rights, and the principle of leaving no one behind into the design, delivery, monitoring, and financing of preparedness and response systems.

Lesson 7. Strengthening and using the multilateral system

Multilateral channels have many benefits in terms of effectiveness, timeliness and coherence in implementing responses in partner countries. The allocation of resources from and through multilateral actors played a crucial role in shaping fast, coherent and adaptable responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bilateral providers relied on the multilateral system and provided core and unearmarked funding for these organisations, contributing to their aim of a coherent nexus response. Providers can usefully adopt this approach in “normal” times, right-sizing the requirements on financial compliance and results monitoring and reporting to manage risks and add value (for learning or accountability) without creating unnecessary burdens.

The crisis showed clearly the importance of investing in the multilateral system as a kind of global insurance to ensure that there is a rapidly usable backbone to support global action when needed. The multilateral system, in particular UN agencies, was key in scaling up co‑ordination mechanisms across development actors, to address the health, socio-economic and humanitarian impacts of the crisis. In total, DAC members provided USD 94 billion to the multilateral system between 2020-2022 (OECD, 2025[1]).

Pooling funding worked well, especially when it was used instead of and not in addition to separate funding channels or existing funding mechanisms. Multistage and core support enable flexibility in the response to an evolving crisis; whereas response programmes that had a short-term and narrow crisis scope lacked sufficient flexibility to meet changing priorities. Earmarked funding should be time-bound and subject to reflection once the crisis has passed to ensure that shifts in or broadening of mandates are intentional and do not contribute to broader fragmentation of the multilateral system.

To support more effective global crisis response:

• Quickly provide unearmarked funding to enable development and humanitarian actors – including implementing agencies – to respond with flexibility and timeliness.

• Use pooling mechanisms to make sufficient resources available for the crisis response, topping up existing pooling funds if possible, or using existing co-ordination platforms to manage new funds.

• At the country level, establish capacities and a clear structure for joint planning and programming.

• Invest in multilateral institutions to ensure they have sufficient capacity, clear mandates and political support to provide necessary leadership, technical guidance and co-ordination.

Lesson 8. Addressing incoherence across policy goals

In a crisis that impacted all, an approach focused on global solidarity and mutually-beneficial assistance was important for garnering support. There were positive examples of aligning national interest with the global public good of responding to the pandemic everywhere and for everyone. The novelty of the virus itself, as well as the sheer global scale and speed of the impacts of COVID-19 meant that decisions were made imperfectly, and that, countries and their development and humanitarian actors had to make trade-offs and difficult decisions. For high income countries, the pandemic impacted on their own populations, and their own health systems and economies were significantly tested. There was, thus, a need to balance the development and humanitarian response with domestic needs and capacity.

International assistance can be complemented – or on the contrary, undermined – by other policy actions by the same governments. Despite many successful individual and joint efforts, actions of provider countries in pursuit of other goals and geo-political considerations often outweighed evidence on needs and potential impact, undermining relevance, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of international co-operation during the crisis.

The unequal vaccination rates across countries highlighted both the potential of international co-operation and its pitfalls, including the need for a more strategic, holistically joined-up approach using multilateral institutions to ensure equitable distribution. While COVAX and bilateral vaccine donations improved access for low- and middle-income countries and supplied tens of millions of doses, purchase agreements by higher-income countries limited the vaccine supply available to COVAX and ad hoc bilateral distribution undermined the strategic allocation mechanism. Such incoherence in the actions of countries providing development assistance – including procuring doses beyond what their populations required – were at odds with and ultimately undermined the multilateral efforts.

Aligning national policies with humanitarian and development-related objectives accelerates positive dynamics– enhancing efficiency and effectiveness. Policies including commercial interests and intellectual property, border control and migration, asylum and refugee rights, trade and investment, tax, intellectual property, agriculture and fisheries are just some of the areas with critical cross-border impacts.

Political decisions were sometimes poorly aligned with technical co‑ordination efforts. In the crisis context, recipient countries found it difficult to decline offers of support – even when those offers were not well-suited to local needs. Future crisis response efforts should aim to better align decision making at all levels.

To address these challenges, providers and partners should:

• Develop tools to better understand the impacts of policy decisions on developing countries.

• Work across government to address incoherent policy actions that undermine development and humanitarian goals.

• Align policy instruments with strategic priorities in long-term national interests. Reconsider how national interest is framed and implemented to ensure that perceived protection of national interest in the short term does not ultimately undermine outcomes for all.

• Work to align bilateral efforts with multilateral co‑ordination mechanisms and minimise the extent to which allocations are made unilaterally or driven by donor priorities to the detriment of other considerations including efficiency and coherence.

• Build on the effective work done in rolling out COVID-19 vaccines, especially in supporting national capacities and addressing misinformation, and address vaccine nationalism, procurement and vaccine hoarding, optimal global outcomes will remain out of reach.

• Advocate for equitable access to vaccines, treatments and other needed supplies, and align national procurement strategies to global equity goals.

7.3. Lessons on evaluation, learning and collaboration

Lessons about learning across international development actors have also emerged from this project. The COVID-19 crisis presented many challenges for evaluation – both those working on international co-operation and those supporting national governments in responding to the pandemic. The crisis revealed weaknesses in how evidence is used and communicated. In a context of high uncertainty and rampant disinformation, the role of evidence in informing effective public policies was brought to the fore.

Evidence-based decision-making in an evolving context called for rapid assessments and actionable, timely findings. Evaluators responded by developing and using more real-time and decision maker-oriented approaches that were more closely integrated with programme and funding processes. Evaluators are working to identify challenges and benefits of these approaches and their applicability beyond crisis response as a complementary tool to other types of evaluation.

In addition to the responses of individual evaluation units and networks, the COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition emerged as an innovative approach. The Coalition built off previous collaborations including drawing inspiration from the set-up of the Tsunami Evaluation Coalition and the work of the Evaluation of the Implementation of the Paris Declaration Phase 2 in combining donor case studies and country-led partner case studies. It brought together evaluators from across the international development and humanitarian sectors, to co-ordinate and accelerate learning.

The strengths of the approach of the COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition included increasing the speed and relevance of evaluative analysis, reducing transaction costs, increasing influence by bringing together partners. Support for country-led evaluations and co‑ordination of thematic studies and methodological work across the global evaluation community proved highly valuable. The model of this strategic joint evaluation – a global evaluation looking at overall outcomes – could be further refined and adopted for other topics. Particularly important are lessons about how to accelerate learning by generating evaluations around common questions, and ways to strengthen national ownership through country-led evaluations.

7.4. Future considerations for humanitarian and development co-operation

In addition to the moral imperative to save lives in the future and relieve suffering, there are incentives for all countries to more effectively prevent and respond to global crises. More effective co-operation can improve outcomes for all – both in global health emergencies, and for co‑operation to address broader sustainable development goals.

The importance of future planning and pandemic preparedness cannot be understated. However, this needs to be reconciled with the reality that that development and humanitarian co-operation budgets are becoming increasingly constrained. The World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that an additional USD 10.5 billion per year in international financing will be required to fund a fit-for purpose pandemic preparedness and response architecture, with most gaps found in low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries (WHO/World Bank, 2022[2]).

There have been positive moves since the pandemic to support pandemic response in the future:

• The development of a pandemic preparedness and response accord by WHO Member States is a positive step in helping ensure communities, governments and all sectors of society are better prepared and protected in the event of a future pandemic (WHO, 2025[3]). However, there have been delays in reaching an agreement.

• The creation of the Pandemic Fund, a multilateral financing mechanism dedicated to strengthening critical pandemic prevention, preparedness and response capacities, and capabilities of low- and middle-income countries, is also a positive step forward in ensuring readiness and the availability of funds when required by the next pandemic (The Pandemic Fund, 2024[4]).

Looking to future crises, transparent needs assessment frameworks – coupled with dedicated emergency funding windows accessible to all affected countries, regardless of existing relationships – that serve an overall steering function for allocation decisions, are essential to upholding the fundamental humanitarian principle that aid should reach those most in need and that health and life have the right to be protected.

References

[1] OECD (2025), OECD Data Explorer, Creditor Reporting System (flows) (database), OECD Publishing, Paris, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/52.

[4] The Pandemic Fund (2024), The Pandemic Fund, Background and Overview, https://www.thepandemicfund.org/background (accessed on 12 August 2025).

[3] WHO (2025), Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response accord, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/pandemic-prevention--preparedness-and-response-accord (accessed on 12 August 2025).

[2] WHO/World Bank (2022), Analysis of Pandemic Preparedness and Response (PPR) architecture, financing needs, gaps and mechanisms, World Health Organization/World Bank Group, https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/5760109c4db174ff90a8dfa7d025644a-0290032022/original/G20-Gaps-in-PPR-Financing-Mechanisms-WHO-and-WB-pdf.pdf.