The COVID-19 pandemic is much more than a health crisis, as the diverse contributions to this timely book make abundantly clear. Dr Michael J Ryan, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergency Programme, has observed that “Nobody on this planet is safe until everyone is safe”. An unprecedented spirit of global solidarity is required to overcome the multiple threats COVID-19 poses to our health, economies and societies, particularly in resource-poor settings.

In Ireland, we have a strong sense of community – meitheal – coming together to work collectively for a better future. This clear sense of global citizenship underpins Ireland's development cooperation, as outlined in our international development policy, A Better World. Ireland is playing its part in building and contributing to a coherent, effective and integrated global response to COVID-19. Our overarching priority is to reduce the incidence and mitigate the impact of the pandemic among vulnerable populations, in line with our commitment to reaching the furthest behind first.

As the contributors to this book outline from a range of different perspectives, these efforts are unfolding in a highly dynamic, interconnected and changing world. Pre-COVID-19, we were already facing unprecedented levels of humanitarian crises, with over 134 million people in need of assistance and protection. Protracted crises are becoming the new normal. New threats are emerging to peace, and geopolitics is becoming increasingly complex and volatile. To overcome these challenges and achieve the UN (United Nations) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), poverty needs to be addressed from a multidimensional perspective. This includes the way the international community approaches and applies research, evidence, knowledge and learning.

‘Research and Learning’ is identified as one of the five key criteria for action in A Better World, acknowledging the need to prioritize learning and to situate research and evidence centrally within Ireland's development cooperation programme. We recognize the intrinsic value of research as a global public good, but also its role in better understanding approaches that work most effectively to reduce poverty. Together with learning from experience, reviews and evaluations, research is the basis on which we build knowledge and evidence for our work in international development – and nowhere is this more important than when working in conflict and fragility, where the context can and does change rapidly.