Global crises are nothing new. They’re par for the course at Davos. What is new this year is how today’s litany of crises took the world by complete surprise, says Patricia Danzi, director-general of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

She talks to Devex Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar about the unprecedented reach of crises that have upended the lives of everyone from farmers to presidents — as well as the unprecedented response by the global community. But is the private sector fully on board?

Patricia Danzi started work as the first female head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in May 2020. ​
The 53-year-old humanitarian is a former elite athlete, who represented Switzerland in the heptathlon at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. She also speaks seven languages. Danzi holds Swiss and Nigerian citizenship. She says she inherited her diplomatic skills from her father, who studied law at the University of Fribourg, and her humanitarian commitment from her mother, who was a secondary school teacher.
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