Assessing and Addressing COVID-19 Response in Humanitarian Settings

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread globally, the Global Health Program took on a crucial role in supporting the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Task Team (TT), which played a key role in the international response in humanitarian settings. The TT was responsible for understanding and addressing the response needs of countries, health clusters, and response agencies. In August 2020, the Global Health Program performed a vital study for the TT to identify gaps, challenges in contextualizing, and operational hurdles faced by front-line providers in humanitarian settings. The study, carried out in some of the world’s most challenging environments—Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh; Burkina Faso; Chad; Iraq; North East Nigeria; and Yemen—additionally highlighted good practices and innovations that emerged during the crisis. The findings have been used by WHO and country leaders in guiding their COVID-19 response efforts. Additionally, the Global Health Program advised on four studies that investigated challenges in vaccination in humanitarian settings, coordination and collaboration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and understanding how COVID-19 impacted the vulnerability of populations living in humanitarian settings. 

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