ECA Executive Secretary, Vera Songwe, received a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) headed by its President, Mr. Peter Maurer, on 13 December 2018 at the Commission’s Headquarters in Addis Ababa. The Executive Secretary and the President of ICRC discussed the nexus between humanitarian crisis and economic and social development and agreed that this provides an entry for collaboration between their organizations. They also discussed possible collaboration in the area of road safety, where road crashes are estimated to cost up to 5 percent of the GDP of some African countries. They highlighted a range of other issues related to protracted conflicts, fragile states and complex emergencies including migration, climate change, and private sector development. Ms. Songwe and Mr. Maurer agreed to strengthen the partnership between ECA and ICRC through regular dialogue and joint interventions that leverage the comparative advantages of the two organizations – ECA being a think tank of reference on Africa’s development policy issues and ICRC having a wealth of field experience in addressing humanitarian crisis.