Responding to crises

The WIDER Development Conference about ongoing, unexpected, and future crises took place in Helsinki on 23-24 September 2016

Responding to crises


The ‘Responding to crises’ conference aimed to improve knowledge about ongoing, unexpected, and future crises, and to discuss the options available for responses by governments, international agencies, NGOs, civil society and private citizens.

The conference payed close attention to the economic and social impact of crisis, the tensions that arise in responding to continuing crises while dealing with the unexpected, the resourcing of responses and what the future might bring—for good or bad.

Three types of crises - ongoing, unexpected, and future

For the world’s poorest people, each day is a crisis: of finding work, enough to eat, and safety. Theirs is an ongoing crisis.

Other crisis, such as wars, natural disasters, pandemics, and economic shocks are often unexpected, or on a scale exceeding any forecast. 

Technological innovation, demographic change and economic transformation, advance and retreat in the control of disease, climate change, and tensions within and between nations will all shape the crises of the future.

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Sessions | Videos & presentations

Plenary 1 – Crises & responses: framing the issues
Plenary 2 – What is the role of the international community?​
Plenary 3 – Responding to crises: lessons learned and future challenges

Parallel 1.1 – Political and economic transitions in flux - actors and institutions in conflict resolution in partnership with CMI
Parallel 1.2 – Conflict and refugees
Parallel 1.3 – Reforming global trade from a world of crisis
Parallel 1.4 – Catastrophe: climate change, tropical storms, and the changing nature of risk

Parallel 2.1 – Refugees, integration, inequality
Parallel 2.2 – Responding to climate change: the political economy of clean energy transitions
Parallel 2.3 – Responding to economic shocks
Parallel 2.4 – The jobs crisis: demographic dividend or burden?

Parallel 3.1 – Access to quality education as a key in responding to crises in partnership with FCA
Parallel 3.2 – Priorities for reform of the global economic system
Parallel 3.3 – Hunger & food security
Parallel 3.4 – Health: continuing, new and future crises
Parallel 3.5 – Perspectives on sharing the Nile

Parallel 4.1 – Fragile states and conflict
Parallel 4.2 – Crises and migration governance in partnership with IOM
Parallel 4.3 – Gender discrimination and violence
Parallel 4.4 – Natural resource management