HAI’s COVID-19 response, commenced on 26 March 2020, has now entered into sixth week. HAI has been one of the early responders to the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent national lockdown. This has been the most unusual and challenging response, out of all the humanitarian responses of HAI, given the restricted mobility of staff and the transportation means. In spite of that, HAI used innovative and unconventional methods to continue reaching the people in need. Mobilisation of a large number of volunteers and coordination with the local government units facilitated the process to a great extent.
As of now, HAI’s work in concentrated in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Odisha, with sporadic work in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. In addition to that, HAI is also engaged in global advocacy through Alliance for Empowering Partnerships (A4EP) and Charter4Change. Through these platforms, and together with other actors from the global South, HAI has been trying to influence the UN’s COVID-19 Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP), which could be more facilitative to the local response mechanism.
