This study provides insights into the group of participants in the “Young Leaders” programme of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in the Middle East and North Africa and their experience of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020. Most of them are young, educated and socially engaged members of their countries’ middle classes. While the Covid-19 pandemic was not the only, and arguably not even the most severe crisis that affected daily lives in 2020, its adverse impact was nevertheless immense.