Some countries the IRC serves are only beginning to experience the impact of COVID-19. The IRC is using lessons from countries further along in their responses to scale our impact in areas where COVID-19 is spreading.

The IRC finds conflict-affected and fragile countries face not only the direct health impacts of COVID-19 but also secondary havoc to already fragile humanitarian, economic, security and political environments.

This policy brief offers ways the World Bank can standardize refugee inclusion across COVID-19 responses and continue to leverage financing for more inclusive national policies. The brief features case studies on Chad, Jordan, and Pakistan to spotlight different levels of inclusion across World Bank-funded COVID-19 response plans.

Roughly 1 billion children worldwide are out of school due to school closures related to COVID-19. Children in humanitarian settings face a double crisis as the health emergency disrupts their opportunities to learn, develop and thrive. Ensuring children can continue to learn during the pandemic, no matter their access to technology, must be central to the COVID-19 response in fragile contexts.