Giving Compass' Take:

• Here are promising initiatives that are effectively scaling progress of responses and relief efforts to COVID-19 across the globe.

• What is the role of donors in the international response to COVID-19? 

• Read why impact investors are part of global relief.

The COVID-19 crisis presents the world with a huge challenge: Everyone and everything is affected, and the response has to be both quick and global. While it is first and foremost a health crisis, it is also an education crisis, an employment and economic crisis, a crisis of hunger and a poverty and, in some countries, a crisis of governance and political stability. According to World Bank estimates, the global impacts will be profound and long-lasting.

In mid-April 2020, we issued a call to participants of the Community of Practice on Scaling Up Development Outcomes (CoP) requesting contributions to a special newsletter dedicated to the challenges and implications for international development of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a cross-sectoral and diverse CoP with one objective: understanding the operational and policy requirements for effective scaling development impact in middle- and low-income countries. With over 600 participants from over 250 organizations, and with active working groups on agriculture and rural development, health, nutrition, education, youth employment, social enterprises, monitoring and evaluation, and scaling in fragile states, we thought it was especially well-positioned to help developing countries engineer an effective response to the health, economic, and social impacts of the coronavirus.

We were not disappointed. We received 40 submissions—some on more than one initiative. The responses spanned subjects including agriculture and rural development, education, health, nutrition, social enterprise, and youth employment. In early May, we distilled them into in a newsletter. This blog summarizes their insights and highlights some promising initiatives. Five messages deserve special attention

  1. Identify, disseminate, and evaluate promising innovations in real time.
  2. Revisit the role of digitalization and IT in reaching scale during crises.
  3. Differentiate responses between developing countries and high-income economies.
  4. Recognize sector specificities.
  5. Incentivize aid agencies and implementing organizations to adapt.

Read the full article about responding to COVID-19 by Larry Cooley and Johannes F. Linn at Brookings.