When the COVID-19 pandemic became a reality in early 2020, anticipation practitioners had to immediately act across the globe mostly on three different levels:
- Enact preparedness, prevention and mitigation measures to curb the spread of the pandemic and face its public health consequences;
- Assess potential secondary impacts of the pandemic, such as socio-economic consequences, and launch anticipatory action projects targeting vulnerable populations at risk;
- Adapt the usual business modalities to maintain operational initiatives aiming to anticipate other forthcoming crises.
Within the field of anticipatory action, institutions often had to completely re-shift their focus in 2020 on the COVID-19 crisis. In some cases, anticipatory work was put aside to support emergency response efforts.
Eight months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in this session we take stock of ongoing experiences related to Anticipatory Action in COVID-19 to understand what were the main challenges and achievements encountered so far.