On 18 September 2024 Janez Lenarčič, then the EU Crisis Management Commissioner, addressed the European Parliament in the wake of the devastating floods in central and eastern Europe. Noting the nearly 2 million people affected by the disaster, he also pointed out that thousands of hectares of forest were burning in Portugal. Commissioner Lenarčič warned that “events that used to be once in a lifetime are now an almost annual occurrence.” Just one month following his speech, flash floods ripped through eastern Spain at the cost of 232 lives lost and 3 people still missing and an estimated EUR 3.5 billion in compensation.
According to Commissioner Lenarčič, “we are already living in an age of crisis.” If this is true, policy and decision-makers need new ways of thinking about, planning for and responding to crises. This article looks closer at the nature of crisis and emerging challenges facing policymakers and the people and organisations managing crisis response. Furthermore, it advocates for the role of evaluations in managing the crisis cycle.
The crisis complex
‘Crisis’ once implied a singular, intense moment requiring urgent decision-making. Today, we use crisis to refer to big problems, some of which unfold over time, some which never seem to end, and many which interact with each other and create cascading consequences across multiple domains.
When it comes to modern crises, we must consider factors like frequency, intensity, multiplicity, interconnectedness and increasing longevity. While these factors are evident in many different crises, they are particularly evident in environmental challenges. Within the macro challenge of climate change we see increasing frequency and severity of individual wildfires, droughts, hurricanes and floods. We see how each of these events causes physical damage and danger and also contributes to economic instability, social upheaval and security threats. For instance, in the Sahel region, nomadic herders have traditionally moved in search of fertile land. However, as desertification progresses, they increasingly encroach on farmland belonging to settled agricultural communities, leading to tension and, at times, violent conflict. Rising temperatures could decrease staple crop yields in the region by 10-30%, generating food insecurity and economic instability.1 The world’s leading experts warn that these multidimensional impacts will only intensify.
Environmental crises are not only intensifying but also compounding. For instance, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh destroyed crops and infrastructure in 2007. The storm’s residual salt rendered vast tracts of farmland infertile, exacerbating food insecurity. Consequently, the country invested heavily in high-yield rice varieties – while these crops were more productive, they proved less resilient to drought. This led to a cycle of increasing vulnerability, with each crisis making the subsequent one more devastating.
Clearly, a crisis does not exist in isolation. This is why, in 2022, the United Nations established the Global Crisis Response Group: a coordinated global response to ongoing crises and interconnected challenges such as food security, energy and financing. Nevertheless this is easier said than done. Tackling one crisis, say climate change, often comes at the expense of other priorities. This forces policymakers to sometimes make difficult or unpopular trade-offs.
Three challenges for policymakers managing crises
The complexity of contemporary crises presents new challenges for policy design and implementation. For the sake of brevity, and acknowledging where and how Technopolis Group works, this section looks closer at 3 examples.
The first challenge for public decision-makers, and the first necessity, is to better prepare for crises and their consequences. In the ‘age of crisis’ preparedness becomes an important part of any public policy. This implies anticipating, arbitrating between short-term and long-term horizons and investing. The recent flooding in Spain is just one example that has exposed vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, including emergency response facilities, transportation networks, and power grids. Between 1980 and 2022 the EU experienced substantial losses from climate-related disasters, with weather and climate events causing approximately EUR 650 billion in damages. Of course, not all crises are climate related. Evidently, the ability to anticipate, invest and plan for multiple possible futures is important for decision-makers.
A second challenge is to effectively manage the time of the emergency. In any crisis, there are peaks, moments of emergency that require rapid decision making, but our administrative organisations and our law-making bodies were designed above all to manage the long term, in normal times. In response to the 2022 energy crisis precipitated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Germany sought to accelerate its transition away from Russian gas. However, bureaucratic hurdles delayed wind farm construction and liquefied natural gas terminals. To adapt, the government implemented emergency fast-track policies, highlighting the need for flexible governance in crises. In the response to the COVID-19 Crisis, the rapid development of vaccines was a triumph of scientific collaboration, but differing vaccination rates revealed structural weaknesses. Countries with centralised healthcare systems, such as Israel, swiftly delivered vaccines, while decentralised systems, like those in the EU, encountered delays due to fragmented decision-making processes. However, there are ongoing concerns about the equity of vaccination by Israel. This underscores the need for both agility and accountability in crisis response. In the United Kingdom, agile programmes allowed the rapid procurement of Personal Protective Equipment, but ongoing inquiries raise questions about both the effectiveness and the probity of the procurement process. Emergency management requires an administration that is agile enough to manage the emergency, while at the same time being able to maintain accountability.
The third challenge for public decision-makers is to go beyond post crisis recovery to building resilience that will reduce the impact of future events and break the cycle of seemingly perpetual crisis. Returning to our Bangladesh example, we can see that the cycle can be broken. The Bangladesh Cyclone Preparedness Programme began after Cyclone Bhola killed over 500,000 people in 1970. The country shifted from reactive aid to proactive resilience-building through investments in early warning systems, cyclone shelters, embankments, and community-led preparedness programs. Cyclone Sidr in 2007 accelerated resilience-building efforts, the government further strengthened embankments, expanded the early warning network, and promoted climate-resilient agriculture. The impact is clear, Cyclone Amphan which struck in 2020 was one of the most powerful storms of recent years, yet there were only 15 deaths, compared to over 500,000 in 1970. The cost of damages was estimated at USD 130 million compared to USD 1.7 billion from Cyclone Sidr in 2007. The reduction in losses reflects better preparedness, improved infrastructure, and faster recovery mechanisms. By prioritising long-term resilience, Bangladesh has not only saved lives but also safeguarded economic stability.
Learning from crisis: The role of evaluation
Crises will always present challenges, and the growing complexity, interconnectedness and frequency of crisis that we have highlighted undoubtedly make that challenge harder. How do we bridge the gaps between crisis preparedness and governance, while affording room for reflecting on improvements in anticipation, adaption and resilience in many policy areas? We are seeing progress with various studies, reports and frameworks being developed to support learning from and responding to crisis in a more sophisticated and effective way.
A recent Global Assessment Special Report, Forensic Insights for Future Resilience: Learning from Past Disasters, aims to demonstrate how we can prevent crises from becoming the norm by analysing current and future trends. It highlights the potential of forensic analysis in enabling more targeted and effective risk reduction. A focus on breaking the cycle of crisis is at the centre of the UN’s Sendai framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, which puts the emphasis on a) better understanding the risk; b) strengthening disaster risk governance; c) investing in disaster risk reduction and prevention, and d) enhancing preparedness for effective response and to “build back better” in recovery and reconstruction phases.
These are good initiatives and, of course, evaluation is central to such initiatives and as a support for public and local actors to turn mistakes into insights and opportunities into future resilience. Ultimately, evaluation is not about looking back, it is about shaping the future. By systematically assessing crisis responses, policymakers can refine strategies, avoid repeating mistakes, and build the institutional memory needed to manage future shocks more effectively.
- Burke, M.B., Miguel, E., Satyanath, S., Dykema, J.A., & Lobell, D.B., 2009. Warming increases the risk of civil war in Africa. Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, no. 49 ↩︎