The recently published SPACE paper on the Economics of Early Response and Resilience to COVID-19 builds on the seminal studies carried out for DFID in 2013 and USAID in 2018 on the Economics of Early Response and Resilience, which changed the way that both donors fund crises. These studies demonstrated the significant economic gains of investing in a more proactive response to crises, estimating the relative cost of a late humanitarian response, and comparing this with the early humanitarian response, a safety net response, and a resilience-building scenario. 

The SPACE paper uses a similar approach to understand what the economic gains could have been of the COVID-19 social protection and humanitarian response, primarily focusing on the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) in Ethiopia.

This event was a chance to hear about key findings from the paper, and what these might mean for FCDO and USAID.

 

Speakers

Courtenay Cabot Venton, Deputy Team Lead, SPACE initiative 

Stefan Dercon, Professor of Economic Policy, Blavatnik School of Government and the Economics Department, University of Oxford

Greg Collins, Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security

 

Resources

Economics of Early Response and Resilience to COVID-19 - SPACE