Economic Recovery and Resilience in Crisis Environments (Event Resources)

We face an unprecedented refugee crisis in Syria and recurrent natural disasters in places like the Philippines and Nepal. In this context, the SEEP Network is working to revise the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards (MERS). These standards articulate the minimum level of technical and other assistance to be provided to enable economies and livelihoods to recover after a crisis.

In this seminar, we discuss the MERS and learn from other field practitioners’ lessons from a variety of complex operating environments.

We discuss questions like:

• How have humanitarian agencies promoted economic recovery for affected populations in Nepal, Syria, the Philippines, and Haiti?
• What lessons are most useful to practitioners regarding what constitutes an effective response?
• What are some of the key lessons we need to focus on when revising the MERS?

The MERS were developed in 2009 and revised in 2010 with input from hundreds of practitioners on effective assistance to disaster-affected populations. The SEEP Network is updating the MERS with support from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. This provides us with a unique opportunity to discuss the latest advances and challenges in global development and disaster relief.