Donya Gilan, Psychologist and Head of Science Communication at the Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research in Mainz,
Geoffrey Mulgan, Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at University College London,
Katrin von der Dellen, Team Lead of Programme Development & Donor Engagement at CARE Germany,
Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, Professor of Mathematical Economics at TU Vienna, Deputy Director of the Vienna Institute of Demography
What are the lessons from 2023’s “shocks” in terms of natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Turkey and northern Syria, the droughts in southern Europe or the destructive fires on Maui? As we move from crisis management to long-term strategies, what can we expect from forecasting methods?
Berlin Demography Days 2024: Overcoming Crises. Shaping Policy for an Uncertain Future | Tuesday, 23 January – Thursday, 25 January 2024
www.population-europe.eu/DemographyDays
So good afternoon everyone before we start just a a technical note H we are offering simultaneous translation into English and German and you can see the the this little Globe at the bottom of your screen so you can select your preferred language welcome to the third and final
Day of the Bering demography days today we’ll be looking Beyond crisis and towards the future hopefully with optimistic lens this is our first panel of the day building back after after shocks and Beyond and we have two more panels this afternoon and a closing session with a
Climate novelist Maya Lund at 5:00 pm you can use the same Zoom link to join the sessions afterwards allow me to introduce myself my name is Daniela vono and I work at population Europe I will be moderating the session today our panel will discuss multiple aspects of Crisis management and how we
Can do better in the future we have four fantastic experts with us today coming from different backgrounds Dr Donia gilan head of science communication at The lianes Institute for resilience research in mines Germany Katherine fandan who who who who heads care Germany’s project development and owner engagement team Sir Jeffrey Mogan professor of
Collective intelligence public policy and social Innovation at the University College London and Professor Alexia fotr briset professor of mathematical economics at the Vienna in University of Technology welcome all of you I would like to start with a general question to our to all our panelists as recent years have show with
An expected event events from the earthquake disaster in turkey and north and Syria to devastating fires in Maui not to mention Wars or the covid pandemic much of what happens on this planet cannot be fully predicted government responses to this crisis have shown that while there is some degree of
Preparedness much of the response is not necessarily planned in advance you have all worked or studied responses to crisis from very different perspectives so my first question to all of you would be what are the main lessons you have learned from crisis in recent years and what should be
Prioritized in order to build more resilient response systems da perhaps you could start I would uh you you work at a reference Institute for resilience studies in Germany and I can imagine how busy you have been since the pandemic what have you learned and what would be the main recommendations to
Governments trying to build resilient response systems first of all thank you so much for inviting me I will speak in German because I can speak more fluently yes during the pandemic we very much looked into management mechanisms that is how can people get to terms with the rapidly
Changing conditions in their lives how can they especially also step forward to take action more quickly because there were many different changes of course and we first found that there was a high measure of insecurity in the population people had very great problems with ambiguous situations situations they cannot
Immediately grasp for which there are not immediately any possibilities of solution so they responded with great exhaustion symptoms of fear of depression were found but interestingly in their self assessment of the studies where we participated for example the cosmo study the resilience that is the stress recovery capability
Or the measure of capability to deal with these situations was regarded as stable in comparison with the pre pandemic time then of course we took a look at how do people deal with these situations and what leads to a particularly good well-being and mental Constitution and I would say positive
Resilience we found that particularly cognitive mechanisms that is flexibility in thinking and action helps people to cope with these new situations that arose during the pandemic that is also cognitive flexibility this is what we call it this Dynamic process of resilience has also shown itself very well namely that
Resilience is not static but that people in different Realms of Life can also adapt in different ways some were very um able uh to cope very well in private life not so much in their professional lives so this Dynamic process is also very uh life segment specific this uh
Turned out and showed itself very well and emotion regulation strategies play a very Central role this is what we also found namely how can I at short notice put myself into a positive mood how can I regulate negative emotions through certain resources I’ve got available and which during the pandemic for example
Were regulated a lot so these were Central aspects that helped people get to positive well-being and also ritualized processes that is a daily structure or structure of the day which was uh definable despite the pandemic and active coping that was also a central mechanism that had it that people in
Comparison with other um people had fewer psychosomatic and depression symptoms another Central Key in crisis uh management was also social support social assistance in many studies um this was found out in fact at the end of the previous Century but it also turned out as a central Factor during the
Pandemic but also relative to natural disasters for example at the beginning I think you mentioned them it was shown that social networks and a form of community bonding where people experience a social identity through a we feeling helps that people uh to get back to this um to
Compensating this loss of control they feel and can develop a collective feeling which strengthens them that is that helps them to develop self efficacy and then don’t feel as threatened by crisis situations so a a joint perception of a threat can construct a social identity
And as a result also leave to lead to pro-social behavior which in many crisis contexts was found even though this was at short notice sometimes so this was a central aspect that was found out and overall of course these um crises also highlighted the structural aspects which lead to social inequality
In the society that is the building of resilience and the extent of management mechanisms depends a lot on what opportunities of partaking the people affected head in the society what family status whether they were loan parents how many childrens they had what their socioeconomic status was whether there were any multiple burdens
Like language wise for example on the side of refugees with migration background so all these structural factors in a very evident way surfaced in these studies so that it became very evident that the necessity exists especially in crisis contexts to strengthen vulnerable groups and the Ree of of being affected is very different
Especially when people were already at tipping points in their lives and U then there was another very critical event in their lives that they then of course have to carry a much higher burden and are much more stressed so this was a little insight into the personal resilience factors and what
Collective resilience mechanisms have caused thank you so much da this is very very interesting Katherine I would like to to talk to you now um and to bring you to the conversation as someone with lots of experience in humanitarian AIDS what has been in your experience at Care
At care Germany the situation what are the main lessons you have learned from the crisis of the last few years has it changed the way you worked in the past or was it uh I mean my point here is you were already used to react fast to human
Big humanitarian crisis what has changed with the covid pandemic um yes thanks danela so um in general um what we learn from crisis and this is not specifically to co but like every crisis like from conflict to natural disasters there’s actually one main thing in common that we see that
Actually women and girls are affected most and they have specific needs and they are often not adequately considered in crisis response that is a specifically um sexual reproductive Health Service needs menstrual hygiene needs um gender segregated wash facilities um with lightning and lockers for instance so we really see that and
That was also um that also increased during co co that actually the gender-based violence in humanitarian context is a global issue of grave concern that disproportionately affects actually women and girls so we can say that generally in times of economic hardship um gender-based violence especially the inate partner violence is
Rising um families often apply negative coping strategies um such as early marriage marriage of um adolescents um they see it as a way to reduce and financial burden of a household in the short term but often do not see actually the long-term uh implications like on health and also economic um aspects um
For girls um like adolescent pregnancy often leads to a school dropout and um that has of course lifelong consequences on income opportunities and equality in general um what we also observed is um the participation of women in decision- making and crisis resp once this week um particularly the female uh lead
Organizations have not been um adequately consulted and funded also during covid because um they often had been like very very important organizations who actually provided um gbv response services so um what should be prioritized um yeah we think that actually the promoting women’s participation and planning processes
Ahead of Crisis and during crisis is crucial we favor a locally LED action um yeah we should support the experts women Le organizations know best about the challenges women face in the respective country and supporting women Le organizations in their Technical and financial capacity to prevent address and respond to gender-based F violence
In emergency situations is important this approach also reflects the feminist foreign policy approach of the German government um they emphasize to Advocate um for right or for the rights of women and girls their representation in decision bodies and to equip them with resources um yeah such as exess to
Finance networks and knowledge um another learning from the crisis that actually also some crisis like natural disasters can be predicted and forecasting methods are improving so Banga dash for instance we um know um the lead time for Monsoon flooding it’s already up to one month and we can use
This time between the forecast and the event itself to start with humanitarian actions this could be preparing for evacuation of roads and shelters and the evocation of livestock um those action of course need to be agreed in advance that they can be directly implemented once actually the trigger for the
Flooding is reached and they need to be um funded um um otherwise they can’t be implemented and this actually anticipatory humanitarian approach saves lives preserves the life of and the dignity uh of affected population and also redu costs so in Bangladesh for instance we could um have cost savings
Uh um alloc amounting 178 EUR per household over to you danela thank you Karen this is very interesting and it’s it’s very nice that you connect uh with the German feminist foreign policy because this is also quite new uh do you think there’s a a relation with the postco phase or it
Helped the the big crisis to have more awareness about the vulnerability of women and girls or or this was a is was already a long-term Trend so to say like last 10 years um well I would say um definitely we did um many studies actually um what uh Co I
Mean how Co impacted especially women and girls and actually yes I think this topic um like gained a lot of attention but yeah I’m not so sure I mean Co actually all um changed our way of working together um yeah bringing people online together maybe being also more
Closely um connected with some local organ organizations so we definitely had um yeah more exchange and um yeah so I think yeah it’s kind of um yeah I I don’t know how it benefited this policy I think that was already um important before covid but uh yeah um so I I I
Don’t know how it actually benefited but um yeah thanks thank you thank you this is very interesting and I’m very glad that we have such a diverse group with us so that we can learn from different perspectives I would like now to invite Sir Jeffrey Mogan professor of collective intelligence public policy
And social Innovation at the University College London to share his insights as a scholar devoted to the study of collective intelligence but also with lots of practical experience in leing with governmental bodies what is your take on how far have public policies improved since the pandemic what what
Would be your assessment are we in a better place in terms of preparedness are we becoming more intelligent collectively using your your word no um uh will be the short answer yeah so my my perspective on this really comes from working mainly within governments and with quite a few
Governments around the world both on uh fast and slow crises so maybe I’ll just disting those uh and there are so many different kind of crises Financial crashes natural disasters pandemics um climate collapse they’re all slightly different in nature some are fast some are slow and some begin
Fast like covid and then become slow I mean covid crisis lasted two or three years war in Ukraine similar and I think there are some lessons about fast crisis in fact I’ve just hosted an event this morning on some aspects of this um how do you prepare better for them you can never
Predict the form of the crisis in any detail but you can do simulations and preparations which get people attuned emotionally as well as cognitively to the likely stresses relationships are key the ability in a crisis to talk to different tiers of government to business civil society and we’ve seen a
Big difference between those societies where those relationships are trusting and ones where they are not trusting and therefore people do not share information vulnerabilities and so on and of course you need agility the ability to move people and resources I don’t see much sign uh of an improvement in that respect since the
Pandemic and the risk is everyone will prepare very well for covid-19 happening again but the next Crisis will be quite different most of my work though has been over the last few decades on slow crisis crises where you can as has been said partly predict them like crises of
Demographic change of of Aging or potential Refugee crisis and so on and here I think the democracies are probably in a worse position than 20 years ago they have less strategic capability often in the hearts of uh governments I think there’s probably been a decline of the quality of methods
Used for analysis and plan planning and decision making many of our systems of Public Finance are very Antiquated are not well aligned at all to our big long-term slow crisis challenges and just to give one example of that Katrine mentioned Bangladesh I I work quite a bit with the
Uh Bangladesh government and Civil Society one of the predictable crises they may face is the huge challenge to jobs in their country they have a lot of jobs in G Ms and furniture and so on which may well be automated replaced by Ai and so we’re working with them and
How do you better prepare for these help your citizens your education system your businesses to navigate to where jobs May grow skills may be in more demand in 10 or 20 years time and this is a very different kind of Crisis uh but it’s one which is pretty visible from now and is
One where not a single government in Europe has a very coherent uh approach to it and often sees these as almost magical things which just affect come and hit you rather than being ones you can handle strategically so yeah my short answer your question is I don’t
See much sign of an improvement of capability since uh the pandemic but what we need in all of our systems is the ability to move very fast when things happen very fast but not at the expense of the things which are very slow and in particular the interests of
Future Generations which require actions now which may not have an effect for 10 20 or 30 years into the future and perhaps we’ll come on to those later thank you very much it’s this is very very relevant what many of many of the things you shared are big concerns
Of our demo demographic community and uh when we have these discussions there’s always the questions like like our governments becoming more aware and investing into long-term preparedness for as you mentioned aging uh demographic change in general uh or the challenge of the working for in the working force so what is your perception
Is there um over time more more Awareness on the need to be longterm prepared or these goals as elections comes in shortterm so I I I think I’m sorry to be depressing I think things have got worse partly since the financial crisis of 15 years ago time Horizons in many parts of
The world shrank and they’ve not really recovered political instability the fragmentation of uh of parties and public support in Germany and elsewhere and certainly in my country has greatly reduce the ability to think and act strategically and just taking this one issue of Aging uh I wrote a book a year
Or two ago on imagination how do we improve our Collective ability to imagine 20 or 30 years into the future and fairly obviously in every society we need to imagine what the world might be like in terms of care residential homes changes to the shape of cities changes
To the shapes of houses Technologies for a society with a significantly different age balance this is particularly pressing in countries like Korea or Japan and China but also in much of Europe and yet both our governments and I think our universities and Civil Society have dramatically failed to set
Out the pathways to a desirable future instead people are a bit frozen into fatalism or pessimism we have some serious work on things like decarbonization and the circular economy where there are these Pathways and road maps but on the central questions of Aging uh we have some rather narrow
Crude techno Solutions we have a terror of the financial challenges for pensions and welfare states and largely a failure to actually picture a plausible desirable scenario for the year 2040 2050 2060 where many of us will be in need of care of all kinds oh I I would like to immediately
Ask Alexia for what what is your reaction to What Professor Morgan just shared yeah so uh many thanks and um just let me maybe really mention that many of the points I’m going to make have been partly already mentioned I just want to emphasize them and also of
Course the demographic future in terms of the Aging uh but also in terms of I guess de population of which we observe in many Eastern European countries or in regions also but let me start very generally so the questions you po to us T I think in the sense like Rec systems
What have we learned I would say uh we really need to act in a sense like to establish resilent systems before the crisis starts and this is definitely where we failed that’s my argument here so I think we need really to learn from the past also to PR prepared for the
Future and I think what we definitely have learned I think that several safety nets several kind of capacities have not been uh really appropriate for the crisis which hit US during the last years so there’s a clear need in a sense to build up our safety nets safety nets
At all level in our economy at individual level but also firm mcro level Etc to react appropriately and we also need in terms of infrastructure may it be now the capacities we had like in the hospitals or having the capacity in terms of the transition out of uh fil
Energy I think there we also need to really uh build up our capacities to react in time when the crisis hits us so basically I’m an economist also and we are always trying to argue like whenever a crisis hits we really need to minimize the loss and the damage from National
Hazards and this is how we have to be prepared to react in time uh let me also mention I think that’s very important uh that the nature of the shock matters so we cannot have a one size fits all policy because it’s the nature of the shock which in the end will determine
How we have to react of course and uh whether it Fosters or reduces the res silence I think that’s a question we need to answer uh most importantly also I think um what I often have missed in the discussion is really like this awareness of Crisis management which is
Often here in the beginning but uh Fades away quite quickly and this is something I think where we have to be also as scientists much more aware of putting it into our models how we can increase the awareness of Crisis management also uh and uh I think it’s really what we have
Seen from many studies and it has been uh mentioned several times I think during the last days it’s really a matter also to invest into people uh in terms of their education in terms of the means to react Etc uh and also invest of course uh in other levels like at the
Firm at the macro level but it’s really kind of reacting means we have to establish people that they are able to react now uh let me also say something what we have definitely also learned during the last years uh we can only react uh if we know which circumstances
To react to and here I would like to mention the problem of data availability we as scientists are confronted uh with and I think this is not just the covid crisis these are many other crisis also where we really uh need to improve data availability not in a long term but
Having quick data uh really when we need to react often they are delayed often they’re inconsistent when we get access to them and uh this is extremely important and I think at least I can just talk from Austria there’s some push towards this with the AUST Micro Data
Center now that there’s a quicker availability of some data and hopefully this will not fade away this uh perception that we need data to react as scientists now let me come also to a third Point uh which has been already been discussed several times and I think
The ep the pandemic but many other crisis they reveal our vulnerabilities I think and they reveal our vulnerabilities at different levels I mean you all know about the supply chain problems we were confronted with but there are also vulnerabilities at the individual level of course how do different people react to different
Health shocks uh do different labor market shocks and we have heard about this this is very different across our society it is and in the end it’s also the Norms values and institutions I think which have to be adapted uh to really reduce our vulnerabilities uh and to build more res silent response
Systems and uh what we are doing also in our own research for example coming back to demography we’re trying to understand for example a specific case the benion systems how they have been uh have to change the reforms but you should not just look at fiscal sustainability what
We have done in our work in the recent years is really to look at how different groups in our population are hit by different reforms and which also implies that we have to use different indicators how to evaluate reforms in our societies for example I mean and especially to
Really highlight I mean this inequality which is persisting still also during reforms and it’s hitting different people in terms of for example we know that people of different socioeconomic background have different life expectance is and this is something we should not ignore in the end of course
We need our Target should be to have the same and possibilities in terms of life expectancy for everyone but this will take a long time of course and uh I think in between we need to find solution to protect this more vulnerable people and not to hit them even more by
Reforms so I think this is something we have contributed to also in the last years now let me also mention that uh I think it’s extremely important uh to show how different groups are affected so we have to make analysis how crisis affects people to really understand this
We have done studies to investigate the 2008 uh financial crisis how it hit different groups in our society in terms of age I mean we have found for nine different European countries that it was basically the young who were hit the most while there was more production uh
Towards the elderly in terms of the social security systems but there were quite of Labor kind of effects on the young people that this has an effect over your whole life cycle so at different ages you hit which implies also this will evolve over their life which is very important and to really
Highlight so we need really studies to highlight also after the crisis to better understand how to be prepared for the next Crisis so reducing inequalities I think is also key to build more silent response systems now let me also say like uh something which I really want to
Focus on also is like um the biggest mistake I think during covid for example was really to ignore the importance to coordinate response systems at various level and across various disciplines when I see at various levels I really have in mind for example the importance of incorporating individual Behavior how
Did different individuals groups react to different measures we have Set uh during our crisis management so it’s extremely important how can we incentivize also different groups in our Society uh to follow I think this management processes but also this interdisciplinary approach is so important I mean that the beginning of
Course of a crisis especially if it hits you fast you have possibly uh only a few disciplines working on this but the longer it takes I think the more disciplines you have to involve I think in crisis management as we also have observed in the last year so an interdisciplinary approach also requires
To educate scientists I mean to react in an interdisciplinary way and last but not least let me also mention we are doing a lot of modeling also in my group and we have tried to really model this nonlinear kind of effects we observing in many of these crisis and also the
Slow fast systems in crisis management and what we have discerned in many of our models is really kind of the dipping points so I’m not saying that we are able to predict the crisis or something but I think if we try to understand the System Dynamics behind this crisis and
Trying to understand kind of really uh our system in terms of where are these tipping points at least I think we are prepared for the next Crisis uh a little bit better so I think it’s uh really important to get an overall and I think uh also involving a global Viewpoint I
Think in this crisis management so this is just a shortcut of some of the recommendations and I would argue that demography is not a crisis I think demography is a challenge and uh it’s just like U my really overall kind of conclusion is often that there’s a
Momentum effect I mean that we as a demographers we often predicted what’s going to happen in the next 20 30 years but it’s a momentum effect I think that institution values Norms did not adjust in the same speed and I think this is something uh we have to pay now for this
Really neglecting I think the demographic structure thank you very much Alexia and uh at this point I would like to invite our audience to write uh their questions you can use the Q&A function in the bottom of your screen you can uh write questions or comments and I’ll read as
We go here in with our discussions uh I would like to to to start a new round uh of uh of inquir to our participants more related to concrete examples So based on your professional experience can you give us concrete examples of what you consider to be best practices successful interventions and
Also what should be avoided at all cost in crisis Management on on concrete what or why you like or dislike in actually in in your own perspective of course uh based on studies if if you can argue in this direction but I would like to learn from you uh based on your
Experience what we consider to be successful ways of facing crisis or the opposite of it perhaps you can start Katherine um yes thank you so I really liked actually the um comments um made by Alexis that it’s important to invest in people actually we have the same um
Opinion about that um actually we really um promote um women’s participation in the response to humanitarian crisis we actually help them to um shape their own um agenda their own leadership objectives and um we would like to enable them actually to articulate their own needs in the international donor
Community actually instead of having International NOS speaking on behalf of women organizations uh another point it’s about um data um collection and Analysis so actually we um really recommend to um conduct the rapid gender analysis to Define actually understand the distinct and specific needs of different groups in society and particularly women and
Girls and also other at risk groups because the more detailed information we have the more tailor made we can actually um do the response um and another um approach I personally like is um we work with um women and girls friendly spaces for instance in refugee camps and those kind
Of spaces have manifold advantages in some societies actually um women um only have like a role in the household they don’t often have the opportunity to exchange with other um women outside the family um about their issues and problems and actually those um women’s girls friendly spaces are spaces where
Only women uh with their children are allowed to enter and they provide actually physical and emotional safety they provide access to multisectoral gbv response Services counseling or info on sexual reproductive health services and it’s um very important it’s an opportunity for women and girls to rebuild social networks to get get into
Exchange with others to start discussions to build confidence to gain knowledge um they also get psychosocial support there and also have the opportunity to to gain um specific skills which allow them to make uh livelihood um but on the other hand it’s also of course very important to engage
Men and boys they need to be informed what’s going to happen inside those spaces that they actually also support and their women um to go there um and I had very um I one very um motivating example in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh where um one uh women shared her
Experience um and participated in the um women and girls friendly space activities she said um she discussed a lot um among the peers about the um early marriage and she really could find um good arguments um why it’s not a good idea also in terms of um financially um
Financial aspects so and then she actually was encouraged to actually um discuss this with her husband because he was actually planning to um let the um youngest daughter um the Adolescent daughter um got married and she could really um convince him with good arguments and she said that would never
Had happened without actually the support from the other women and also the knowledge and facilitation skills actually she uh learned in this um women and girl friendly space um in terms of anticipatory humanitarian action actually um acting before actually a disaster is happening we recommend um um
Yeah a community- based approach um we really need to listen to the concerns of the community what kind of information is needed for them to take those kind of actions and what is the best way to actually Channel information to them and we have good experiences with specific
Voice messages for women leaders they receive actually a message with um advisories and they actually inform uh their neighbors and neighboring women especially on the specific advice and then the women have the chance actually to also address their questions to the women and um we uh experience that um
Women are more likely to follow this advice or to evacuate if they get the advice from another women because they uh see this as a trusted uh source of information yeah these are um yeah my best practices and um good examples thank you Katherine this is
This is uh pretty much in line with what Don has shared with us about the importance of community and we feeling to deal with resilience and it’s also interesting because uh in the our first day of the B the mo days uh Professor Bruno arino shared uh some of his
Research about the role of community in in in Europe in the in the covid Cris and actually he said like in the beginning families were blamed for the spread of the virus but actually families also played a very positive role for example in the in in getting more people vaccinate influencing
Vaccination behaviors and things like that so the the the community aspect here in Europe is also I think uh very relevant and people talk much less about it in our region perhaps da you can you can give us some uh concrete examples as well well when it comes to examples of
Community links U those examples have not been developed in our institutes but I can come up with some very interesting approaches which show how this community links can be established at all and as has been said already here it’s first about um creating this joint set of
Values and to create trust within this Comm Community First of all and that’s also something which we could see in the pandemic that the risk perception of people has changed depending on how strongly their institutional trust uh into the German government had been built up or into the various parties as
We can see already right now in the migration debate and in the ACT attitude towards war that trust is very important and of course that has also affected communities and as has been mentioned already um it has uh created a scattering of the of society in order to
Come up with some examples how trust may be cultivated I would like that uh involvement of the Civil Society is very important if the Civil Society is stronger involved in the political context in the development of new laws or in projects and also uh from politicians
Communication is L at low level so that many parts of the population feel addressed then of course there can be created more trusts in the population and we did have such project during the pandemic where information was shared on certain measures and certain backgrounds on scientific aspects and that was
Public published in a very simple language we drafted this in buletin and we could see that depressive symptoms or fear or things like that had changed into some more well-being into feeling better by those affected another aspect is also bringing together the communities any kind of exchange which
Happens within a community and that may also be projects at local level that may be um joint nights on a certain subject where people of totally different um attitudes may meet even with different opinions and that’s of course also promoting trust and of course it does
Make a lot of sense and this can also produce kind of a feeling of togetherness in the community and another aspect which had been addressed sometimes we have to respond really quickly in crisis and have to cope with different situations and it’s not only that the children’s
The children have kind of a model function which they perceive in their parents or in the other reference persons so we when we as adults have certain resilience Role Models or people who are fighting at the front in of any crisis were mostly affected when we have such positive examples where people are
Able to manage the crisis very successfully that may also strengthen trust in the institution and in the pandemic uh we also had this kind of projects where we took a resilience role models from the health context and um displayed them to the people and also communities in social media or in person
Where they gathered uh in protesting or and that also created this feeling of togetherness so apart from that I would say that there have been some Innovations too which are very effective too which were developed in the midst of the in the middle of the pandemic and
Are now being continued those are uh programs which do not only rely on bouncing back so how you get back to this normal way of functioning which you had before the crisis but how can you develop a new uh crisis model and a grow growth potential which I would see from
The psychological point of view which then will motivate me uh to handle the next Crisis much better and that also can have a positive impact on your community if you are able to help other people or if you just uh can show up certain pathway for actions there are
Some projects for school students for example uh as you know they had been affected quite intensively thrown out of their con context of Life they lost access to many resources and at the same time they did not have so much crisis experience like adults and there had been some programs which really focused
On that in order to developed um concrete skills and strategy for the children how to handle crisis and how to adjust their mindsets to learn from such uh situations that is not only a threat but such situations may also be perceived as a challenge and I think that’s anyway very important and
Especially we as we said already this new awareness of Crisis is actually an extremely long learning process which we are undergoing as a society which probably never will end because crisis uh are following uh one after another and in parallel but the more we manage crisis the better we can address those
Crisis and perhaps the next Crisis will not be so shocking for us like the first one which we experienced some years ago in medine there were also a lot of digital Innovations which were really effective where both the staff and the patients for instance um using cognitive strategy behavioral strategy in therapy
Where they could build up resources in their own working context during inpatient treatment that is also a very interesting Innovation which may be also very useful for persons who may be living in the rural area and are lacking access to always meet in in a face Toof face
Meeting with their therapists or with any healthc care practitioners so in general I would say that still the practices in Psychology and Medicine U still have not cannot open up all or cannot um let’s say do away with all the access barriers for many people uh especially marginalized groups have a
Hard time in getting CL access to these possibilities sometimes they don’t even have the possibility to take part in those programs but in general I would say that preventive measures and in many studies we could see this that is work they have a long-term effect on people
Uh also for the next um situation they feel stronger in handling stress situations thank you so much da this is this is a wonderful you gave us so so many insights thank you uh Professor Moran what is your take on the best practice crisis management do you have
Examples or would you go into the what should be avoided by all means yeah so you asked what’s the worst examples first so the simple answer I think is arrogance and ignorance usually lead to disaster uh Donald Trump will be part of our Lives much more again uh
Soon and it’s worth remembering the beginning of the covid pandemic he first of all said it wasn’t a problem there was no going to be no infections then he recommended detergent then he got into battles with his scientists so it’s crucial to have the humility to learn to
Uh and so on I did a study about a year and a half ago of how different countries around the world fed and undoubtedly these questions of social capital and trust and mutual support are crucial both at a very micro level your own Street your housing block but also
In relation to institutions and the other was the organization of intelligence where many East Asian countries were far ahead of Europe in their use of data knowledge of all kinds to mobilize intelligence and there’s a whole story perhaps for another day then on how Europe’s governments need to
Rethink their their structures now that relates to Alexia’s points about data because in some ways governments in the Pand in the pandemic needed data on infection rates and joblessness r Ates and so on and that was good but there was also a problem because there was lots of data on physical infections but
Usually much less data on mental health and other particularly vulnerable groups and that often distorted decisions and behavior because it was easier to focus on the quantitative rather than the qualitative and tacit knowledge you really needed to understand what was happening and uh many years ago I was
Part of a I ran a government project trying to to ask which parts of the population were struggling or fairing best we called it a strategic audit and again we had to combine a lot of quantitative analysis and qualitative and it turned out the most stressed
Group in Britain at least was not the business Executives who thought they were stressed it was middle-aged low-income women often in jobs but struggling with um money with children and so on and they were almost invisible in the statistics there was almost no government policy for them and yet they
Were the ones most struggling but you had to use a lot of different methods and insights to to in a sense to to to get that and if you only relied on the traditional statistics you would have ignored them a final point in relation to development there’s a very
Interesting debate in the development world over the last 10 years about crisis and disasters where in the past the tradition was you would send in the big you know European and American NOS Theos etc etc but more and more people are saying well maybe the best thing is
Just to give cash to the people on the ground and let them buy what they need and there’s been a lot of Trials a lot of experiments a lot of evidence which mainly have shown that’s a more efficient way of solving a crisis than paying lots of money for costly
Intermediaries now it’s not quite as simple as that because it depends on the nature of the context and the nature of the crisis but it’s interesting the answers are very different from 10 years ago Daniela and uh and quite challenging to many of the the powerful Civil Society organizations involved in
Humanitarian disaster relief and I’ll be interested in others views on that this sort of direct empowerment rather than empowerment of intermediaries sometimes may be the best way to act in a crisis because the people on the ground may have the best knowledge of their needs and how to how to meet them
Thank you Katherine would you like to respond to the this comment uh yes I totally agree I mean that was also what I’m talking about I mean supporting a local capacities and of course cash can be a good modality of course it depends on the crisis I mean
There need to be functional markets Etc and um yeah there need to be a way um that people actually get the cash but um yes I totally agree and um I think there is a general shifting in the thinking that we don’t actually need these like
Big iOS I mean um we actually try not not um to do actually the humanitarian Aid actions by ourselves but more empowering like local people on the ground how to actually um do the interventions thank you Alexia we would like to learn from you about the best practices bad practices yeah so many
Thanks uh I’m not sure if I can really uh offer best practices I can just offer some of the experience I had during the last years on this topic and let me have four points my first point would be like that crisis um management requires a common voice but should allow for
Alternative strategies what I have in mind here is like what we have observed and again let me refer to covid but possibly also to The Climate crisis that in the beginning if there’s kind of a really strong effect uh which can be observed there’s often a common voice
But over time this common voice is unfortunately uh really in a sense taken over by a lot of dispute by a lot of also advantages of specific parties who want to gain little bit of more power and so on so I think this common voice is something which is extremely
Important to have a successful I think pris management we have observed this in the split of the society I think during the last years often and the lack of trust also in science so I’m also in the Austin Academy of Sciences where we doing a lot now to understand why this
Trust in science is so low in Austria and partly I really have to say it’s partly also that low because scientists themselves are sometimes having difficulties in communicating of course the diversity uh which we have to interpret effects of a crisis and also in a sense we are also relying only on
The data we have available so this is again maybe a bottleneck but I think trust in science and Trust in also kind of uh this management of Crisis is extremely important uh within this first point I’m also saying common voice but alternative strategies and I think this is extremely important I think we’re
Still trying to uh deal with the average uh average individual average firm average region average State uh average institution but I think it’s really this kind of alternative strategies which is so important I think if we really want to reach I think the people the specific firms the specific regions and uh I
Think uh successful interventions need to allow to differentiate between different requirements so this is I think a really important point at the micro and micro level my second point would be as an answer to your question uh I think crisis management requires a long press I think the short LIF
Interventions are not appropriate it needs farsighted actions and uh I have in mind for example there were a lot of changes uh making it easier uh also on the labor market to work from home Etc but soon after the crisis two years afterwards it became obvious that a lot
Of the labor market kind of laws institutions did not really manage to continue in this flexibility for their employees so I think uh my feeling is often that there are short quick interventions but it needs much more long-term interventions I think to be prepared also for the following crisis
Or uh this I think is extremely important uh third um a very important point I think is um a crisis management needs also the means to operate properly and I’ve already mentioned this in my first answer to the first question but let me emphasize this again I think uh
Means uh to act properly again at every level and especially if I’m thinking also of the climate crisis even interent there’s a lot of interventions now also in terms of uh getting out of fossil fuels uh trying really to make technology more accessible Etc but we do
Know in our society that there’s a huge degree of diversity in the affability of these Technologies again at all levels and I think this is if we don’t have the means that people can react what we try to offer them I think they will not
React and uh for example also we do know from many economic studies I mean we can uh have several reforms for example on our tax structure Etc but there will always be people who aade these reforms because they don’t have the means to follow this so I think this is extremely
Important and it boils down of course to really investing into people investing into our kind of Institutions and having more trust in our institutions and last but not least uh I think uh let me also mention that what I have observed and we have done also models on this um the
Objectives and the aims uh are very diverse often how to manage a crisis across different kind of players uh in the after the crisis or during the crisis and also the measures to be taken are often quite diverse so I think this is something where we need to get a much
Better handle on this in a sense like uh to adjust the objectives and aims as well as the measures to be taken really to this differential kind of vulnerabilities and I think this is a key issue we still haven’t managed I think and we still have to work on it
And um last but not least we dealing with human behavior also in crisis management and uh let me bring back to the table I think behavioral economics or generally Behavioral Science is extremely important at all levels because in the end it’s the humans uh who have to really take up the behavior
Take up the incentives I mean to react properly thank you so much Alexia and thank you all for joining our session for our wonderful speakers we have learned so much today and uh we we have one question here uh that I can ah Don already replied okay say I we
Had a question now I cannot see it anymore okay thank you so much for joining for joining us and as I previously announced this uh event continues we’ll have two more panels this afternoon and the close session with uh the climate novelist Maya lunda at 5:00 pm uh you can use always the
Same Zoom link to join and uh the next session will start in 15 minutes thank you so much have a nice afternoon bye-bye