Following up on concerns from conflict and post conflict contexts as was raised in the symposium, we now move to propose the following recommendations to development partners, donors, local, regional and national governments, Non-Governmental Organisations, traditional and local authority as well as religious leaders and security actors in volatile situations.

1. There is urgent need to de-hierarchise conflict and post conflict programmes. Ideas, views and aspirations of communities in these contexts should be brought respectfully harnessed and integrated in programming and implementation during crisis interventions

2. In rebel held territories, the neutrality of actors is standard that should be maintained. Traditional and religious leaders continue to play an immense role in addressing fear and suspicion of the locals towards development and relief aid.

3. Donors should rethink their funding strategies during emergencies to take care of leakages and profiteering by a section of actors from NGOs and government. There is a common perception that NGO and government staff often take advantage of pandemics and epidemics to amass wealth.

4. Voices and practices from below (bottom-up approach) ought to be implemented in interventions in times of crises. The symposium revealed that more often than not, the tendency to relegate and sometimes to dismiss local ideas and local actors abounds.

5. Development agencies and local leaders should embrace participatory planning and budgeting in times of crises like during the Covid-19 pandemic. Such an approach is important in enhancing buy-in and participation of the locals.

6. Collaboration should not only be in programming of post conflict and conflict interventions, but should be encouraged and practiced in the entire programme or project cycle.

7. Unnecessary generalizations and assumptions that a ‘one size fits all’ model works in all crisis situations. In some cases, there is need address crises in specific contexts.

8. Security and rule of law contexts have their own unique set of challenges. Authorities and power in certain contexts is in the hands of local defence forces working with more regular forces. In some cases, rebel leaders are in control of some territories. In such situations, our study demonstrated that the use of radio is effective and that religious and traditional leaders play a key role in mediating the status quo with regard to epidemics and pandemics. The framework of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARLPI) in Northern Uganda for example provides a good example.

9. It is important to ensure composition of pandemic and epidemic response mechanisms reflect societal diversity including representation from persons with disabilities, women, various religious sects, private sector, the media, traditional leaders, technical persons including health practitioners. In Uganda, the Covid-19 task forces (initiative of the Government of Uganda) suffered backlash. Concerns arose from the composition of these task forces with communities perceiving them as ‘elitist’ and arguing that their agenda and interests with driven by powerful political elite and the Non-Governmental Organisations as well as private sector actors who often funded operations of the Covid-19 taskforces.

10. NGOs continue to provide necessary gap filling services in areas ridden by insecurity. However, some of them have been implicated in hijacking the agenda of response mechanisms to pandemics like Covid-19 and epidemics like ebola. This is done at the expense of intended project and programme beneficiaries in whose names donor financing was secured.